oh, jami attenberg... i ♥ the way you write.

this book is like richard scarry's busytown. you and the om narr are just looking down at a scene unfolding, and you are watching everyone be very very busy. edie is busy eating herself to death, her estranged husband richard is busy trying to re-enter the dating pool in his sixties, their children are busy resenting their father for leaving their mother in her illness, their grandchildren are busy preparing for their b'nai mitzvah, rachelle the perfec More...

I can't even begin to list all the interviews and articles and accolades Jami is getting for this book, which is so so so so great. I am sort of friends with her, by which I mean we're friends on Facebook and have chatted at publishing events, and she's always been really nice. But we know each other only glancingly, so while I was predisposed to enjoy this book, you can still take it at face value when I tell you that it was holy motherfucking incredibly good.

It even made me cry at one point (o More...

Okay, this is very un-PC but I'm just going to say it: Jews should read this book. Obviously non-Jews should also read this book, but I'm just saying, if you have ever been to a themed Bat Mitzvah with a choreographed dance routine, you will maybe get a slightly bigger kick out of this book.

This novel left me feeling empty and like it was a waste of time. I
very rarely feel this when reading novels, even ones I don't like. (In
fact sometimes reading a bad novel is a joy in itself--it can be kind
of sadistically fun to make fun of in your head, to read out bad
dialogue to people, etc.) I am still trying to wrap my head around why
I dislike it so much because she can write. There were a few observations about her character's actions and just being a human
in general that made smile and tha More...

A tasty little book; a smorgasbord of neurosis and bite sized pieces of suburban melancholy. Edie is fat and I started the book looking forward to living vicariously through her snacking and binging but I also couldn't wait to find out why Edie was so huge. I soon realised that this book is more about how Edie's fat upsets others. Which really, is apt, because that is how it seems to be in the real world. People get fat, everyone concern trolls them and tells them how bad it is (or they side eye More...

I finally finished my first book of 2013. Maybe I should quit reading between 4 and 6 books at a time. If I could concentrate on just one at a time I could complete a book more efficiently. Anyway, this book was quite enjoyable. Small parts of it were somewhat funny, in a weird kind of way, but mostly it was sad. Despite the sadness, the book was well-written and engaging and the characters were all interesting, although a few of them weren't completely likable., which I personally kind of like. More...

The clever and well-written Middlesteins is a dark and funny story about a dysfunctional Jewish family in the Chicago area. Told from a variety of perspectives, it is about a family attempting to cope with the Middlestein mother/wife who is killing herself by overeating, and dealing with the Middlestein father/husband who has decided to leave his wife of 40 years. It is all about family dynamics and personal conflict with astute observations about the middle class milieu. I heard the book review More...

Oh, what's going on in The Middlesteins? No communication, that's for sure, because what better way to up dramatic tension than to not have your characters talk to one another? But when the entire book depends on that fact, and little to no self-awareness emerges as the characters delve into themselves and their options, it just makes for one frustrating read.

Edie Middlestein is eating herself to death. Her husband has left her, her kids make attempts to save her, and she remains indifferent to More...

Im Zentrum des Romans „The Middlesteins" geht es um einen ganz handfesten Skandal, um eine Ungerechtigkeit, die größer nicht sein könnte: Wie kann es sein, dass manche Menschen glücklich sind, während anderen diese Fähigkeit nicht gegeben ist?
Molekularforscher würden vermutlich antworten, dass die Gene verantwortlich sind; nur hilft den Unglücklichen diese Auskunft nicht weiter. Allerdings muss die Fähigkeit zum Glück auch erlernt werden, und eben hier setzt dieser wunderbare Roman an. Anhand de More...

Food, everything it can and does mean to a person, from comfort, love, relaxation, well being, to in the case of this novel, a cause of death. The family in this novel is so very real and for all appearance not very likable. Yet beneath the core they are all so wanting, insecure and so very genuine, actually like most of us and probably our families. Narrated bu different characters, sometimes the reader learns back stories, oftentimes the future, but will it be real and the parts about Edie alw More...

I expected something different from this book. From all the bits and pieces I read on various sites I thought this would be more of a humorous book. I found it quite depressing. The hardest part for me is that the author didn't make me understand why Edie had an eating disorder in the first place. Given that she had this before she married, it couldn't be blamed on her husband or her kids. I did like where she went with how her eating had such an effect on her husband, children, and grandchildre More...

Read this and at the same time read Elizabeth Crane's 'We Only Know So Much". Both books are touching family portraits with quirky characters, midwestern setting and interesting literary perspectives masquerading as enjoyable reads.

I need to come back and write more about the striking similarities between these two stories, and exploring their differences, but right now my daughter and I have a date with Dr. Who.

In Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins, a contradiction:

On page 253, Kenneth is talking on the phone to his lover, Edie, the book’s heroine--mother, grandmother, and wife--who is killing herself with compulsive eating:
“But why should I care what he’s doing if I’m crazy about you?”
“We are allowed to have more than one feeling at once,” said Kenneth. “We are human beings, not ants.”

3 pages later, Kenneth is driving through the suburbs:
“Every mall looked the same from a distance, but he had spent eno More...

If you like self-destructive characters, this story offers two: Eddie Middlestein who eats too much and her husband Richard who leaves her after she gets too fat.

Before proceeding, I should mention that I read self-destructive-character books to gain insight into the bad decision making and then to measure how much I sympathize with it. My review may prove unhelpful if you read for other reasons.

From the standpoint of Eddie's decision to eat too much, I got everything I needed to decide whether More...

Eddie Middlestein sempre gostou muito de comer, desde pequena. Mas agora, já avó, a sua obsessão pela comida está a destruir tudo: o seu aspeto, a sua saúde e a sua família. É submetida a diversas cirurgias por causa da diabetes e continua a comer. O marido deixa-a e continua a comer. Os filhos andam num estado de preocupação constante e ela continua a comer.

Em The Middlesteins, Jami Attenberg mostra-nos de modo muito cru a evolução desta família disfuncional, sempre, sempre com a comida como pe More...

So the Middlesteins are getting divorced after nearly forty years of supposedly blissful marriage. Daddy Middlestein Richard just decided to break loose in what seems like a dick move because it's the middle of a health crisis belonging to his wife. Edie Middlestein is morbidly obese with no end of girth at sight. Is she eating herself to death? She must be!

Locked in between these two are the young 'uns who aren't really young 'uns anymore. Benny, cast in the archetypal role of level-headed, fai More...

This book is well written and the characters are detailed and complex but the whole thing had just too much—all self-absorbed “suburban melancholy”. The Author has received great praise and been touted in the popular press. I was looking forward to reading it.
However, I found the story tedious…everyone is miserable and very little of it was funny. I did enjoy the dance theme of the big event – the twin’s B’nai Mitzvah celebration. The complex planning and expense is familiar to me but terribly More...

I had high hopes for this novel. It was intriguing, a fascinating portrait of a family and the relationships that go wrong. However, it ended up being what I call a “snapshot” novel, basically an observation of a family in the throes of dysfunction, where nothing really happens. There was no real plot.

The imagery of the Jewish family and their meshugenah shenanigans is well written and worth reading - - from the secular approach to Jewish life, the b’nai mitzvah which is all about the party, the More...

I probably should have liked this better, because it was not bad, but I realized about a quarter of the way in that I've read several "family falling apart at the seams"-type books in the last few months and I think I need to take a break from them. I guess that story line just feels a bit old to me, and it's also pretty depressing! On top of that, in this book there were not really any characters to root for, I pretty much disliked all of them.

Edie is the mom, who at 350-plus lbs. is eating he More...

Although I felt a little ambivalent about this book after finishing it, I realize it was less about the writing - which is wonderful - than the subject: a woman who is literally eating herself to death. We meet a suburban Jewish family near Chicago. After 30 yrs of marriage, Richard has decided to leave Edie because she is fat. Actually it's more than that. She has picked him apart, his 3 chain pharmacy has been reduced to one as Walgreen's, Target and others take over the pharmacy business.

For More...

4 stars mostly for its realistic and non-blaming depiction of how an obsessive eater acts. The scene where the daughter-in-law follows Edith through a series of drive-throughs to a Chinese restaurant is classic classic classic (can I say that one more time?) I also admired the way the author was able to display Edie's compulsion with food through out the book. Yes, it was a sad book. But it was sad in the way that life itself is sad. People make self-harming emotional decisions. These decisions More...

I liked this book a lot but couldn't give it 4-5 stars because I don't want to encourage this trend of books with no likable characters. Whose idea was it to start writing books with no heroes? Still I enjoyed this book and it was a fast read. It is funny and sad at the same time.

Edie is a 60-ish married mom of two adult children and has a couple of grandchildren. A retired attorney, she lives in a nice Chicago suburb and is addicted to eating. Her husband leaves her at the outset of the story, More...

In "The Middlesteins," Edie Middlestein, 62, is undergoing some health issues related to her obesity. Her husband has left her and her adult children want to have an intervention, but there is more to Edie's life than they can see. The steady revelation of Edie, not only her relationship with food, but her life behind and beyond the number on the scale as well, made for a rich read.

(It's a very small bit in the book, but I have to address this, too: Early on, Edie's daughter, Robin, moves to Ne More...

I swear I read a review in the newspaper or somewhere that said this book was humorous??? While I would consider some of the writing humorous, I found it to be quite depressing. I guess I would say it wasn't like big, terrible event depressing, but everyday people and everyday life depressing.

Edie Middlestein is obese and literally killing herself with food. Her husband Richard leaves her after like 30 years of marriage because he can't take it anymore. Their two grown children don't know what More...

Months ago I read review after review, hyping Jami Attenberg's novel, The Middlesteins. Although the overall premise of the book seemed a bit morbid, I wanted to see why people were so fascinated. Why would so many people gravitate toward a main character who ate her way to an early death? I was also interested in reading a book set in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

While there is no doubt that this fast paced book is well written, I had trouble connecting with the characters. The descriptions More...

The Middlesteins
A Novel
Jami Attenberg A book review.


The Middlesteins a dysfunctional Jewish family living in Chicago. Three generations: Grandparents, Richard and Edie, their children, Robin and Benny (pot heads) and their children, Emily and Josh.
Richard leaves his wife Edie (an extreme over-eater), after 40 years of marriage, when he realises soon after they married, she never loved him and has replaced him with food.
He files for divorce.
Edie has become obsessed with food. She is killing her More...

The reviews for this book were phenomenal-both professional ones and those from my most trusted reader friends. My expectations were sky high, which is probably why I didn’t love this.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good book. The writing is terrific. If you’re into super dysfunctional families (though with wholly authentic and believable family members) and multiple viewpoints, this would no doubt appeal. There’s no real plot and it’s a bit bleak (to wit: “his happiest days were behind him the More...

Nothing really happens in this book. If you're a plot junkie, it's not for you. But if you like to live in another world for a short while, looking down as scenes unfold in panorama, this is the type of book you will enjoy. Jami Attenberg has an incredible voice; the novel feels like it is being narrated by your Jewish bubbeh as she tells you about a family she knows from the synagogue. This is the type of book that makes you feel like you are watching a movie because you are so present in the c More...

How did Attenberg make me feel so bereft as I finished this book? Somehow, despite her choice of a grossly overweight main character whose behavior made me want to tie her to a chair, Attenberg delivered a story about what it means to be alive and coping with the stresses of marriage, parenthood, addiction, loneliness, and puzzling over how to help those we love.

Attenberg uses an omniscient narrator who looks down, sees the future and the past while the present is playing out, and loves and sym More...

I had a bunch of awesome quotes from the Middlesteins marked in my e-galley, but unfortunately, I took too long to write my review, and the galley expired. So, I am beginning without a quote from which to launch. The Middlesteins is getting much love from around the blogosphere, and basically, I am just adding my voice to the chorus. The book was a lot of fun. I was always excited to pick it up, and the pages flew by.

This is a family tragicomic, at the center of which is Edie Middlestein, a woma More...