American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie

Blakely's warm, candid, touching, fiercely loving account of raising two sons will strike a chord with parents in this age of post-nuclear, extended families. As a feminist and a civil rights and green activist in conservative Fort Wayne, Ind., she transmitted her values to Ryan and Darren, who were born in 1974 and 1975, respectively. The part-time jobs of Blakely, a high-school dean and later a journalist, and her city-planner husband, Howard, made their life together an ever-changing crazy quilt; disputes over money and responsibility led to a bitter, protracted divorce after a decade of marriage. She relocated to Connecticut with her live-in lover, Larry, who was not a family man; their break-up after six years left her a single working mother whose ex-husband paid no child support. With fresh insights honed by feminist scholarship, Blakely (Wake Me When It's Over) writes beautifully of coping with her sons' earliest years, teenage rebellion, the need for parents to impart sex education, motherhood as an exercise in constantly letting go and the empty-nest syndrome. 40,000 first printing; author tour. (Oct.)