Please Excuse My Daughter: A Memoir

by Julie Klam (Goodreads author!)

published	March 27th 2008 by Riverhead Hardcover
binding	Hardcover
isbn	1594489807 (isbn13: 9781594489808)
ebook
pages	272
description	A woman's hilarious, bittersweet account of growing up in a family of career-shunning, dependence-seeking women and her journey to a state of twenty-first-century self-reliance. ...more [close] A woman's hilarious, bittersweet account of growing up in a family of career-shunning, dependence-seeking women and her journey to a state of twenty-first-century self-reliance. Julie Klam was raised as the only daughter of a Jewish family in the exclusive WASP stronghold of Bedford, New York. Her mother was sharp, glamorous, and funny, but did not think that work was a woman's responsibility. Her father was fully supportive, not just of his wife's staying at home, but also of her extravagant lifestyle. Her mother's offbeat parenting style -- taking Julie out of school to go to lunch at Bloomingdale's, for example -- made her feel well-cared-for (and well-dressed) but left her unprepared for graduating and entering the real world. She had been brought up to look pretty and wait for a rich man to sweep her off her feet. But what happened if he never showed up? When Julie gets married to a hardworking but not wealthy man -- one who expects her to be part of a modern couple and contribute financially to the marriage -- she realizes how ambivalent and ill-equipped she is for life. Once she gives birth to a daughter, she knows she must grow up, get to work, and teach her child the self-reliance that she never learned. Delivered in an uproariously funny, sweet, self-effacing, and utterly memorable voice, Please Excuse My Daughter is a bighearted memoir from an irresistible new writer. [close]
date added	01-03-08 edit book

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Mike rated it:

07/29/08

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Mike by: Edan and her Klam-obsessed household
recommends it for: people who hate memoirs, people who love memoirs, and others

The author made me laugh in a few short sentences, thrown casually up as comments on a review. Now I figure a book's got to have ... maybe two or three hundred times as many sentences, some of which may be long, some of which were probably even revised, so the word-to-smirk (or even -to-snort) ratio's gotta be huge. Sign me up.

The Review:
Or, wait--that's friggin' arrogant. A review:
There has been talk on this site, and in one instance in regard to this very book, about the rating sy...more The author made me laugh in a few short sentences, thrown casually up as comments on a review. Now I figure a book's got to have ... maybe two or three hundred times as many sentences, some of which may be long, some of which were probably even revised, so the word-to-smirk (or even -to-snort) ratio's gotta be huge. Sign me up.

The Review:
Or, wait--that's friggin' arrogant. A review:
There has been talk on this site, and in one instance in regard to this very book, about the rating system for books. The five-star scale has provoked discussion and debate, as some see "stingy" where others see "anti-inflationary standards." I decided to take the time to spell out how my final rating emerges, in a quite quantitative and precise manner, from complex and rigorous calculations.

For instance, I hate memoirs. There are certainly exceptions, examples which counter my vigorous and well-deserved antipathy, but as with country music, Hank Williamses are few and far between. More often, with country music and memoirs, you get achy breaky heart crapola. Memoirs are always trying to teach me valuable lessons, or at the very least impart how someone else learned a valuable lesson, even if at times that lesson emerges only through antithesis (the memoir showing in grim, thorough detail how someone didn't learn any lesson, but instead took too many drugs, had too much sex, hated her- and/or him-self to the point of suicide, etc.). This is a memoir: that's one star.

But thankfully I was taught no lessons, and those that Julie Klam learned were dryly and subtly illustrated, and (even better) of little use to me as object lesson. This is a memoir that is about memories generally funny and sometimes sad and often both, a self-examination painlessly attentive to a generally likable and funny self, a meditation on growing up that (huzzah!) illustrates neither a sermonizing disdain for childishness nor a Lifetime-movie tinged-with-autumnal-regret obedience to the middle-class respect for adulthood. We get doody jokes and a lovely appreciation of motherhood (having one, being one). As memoirs go, for this reader it's far more Hank Williams: that's four stars.

I think it is very hard to be funny. Two stars just for trying. And add a star because funny memoirs are either oxymoronic (my bulimic junkiedom being no laughing matter) or stuck in the shadow of the oft-great Sedaris (who is really, really, really hard to imitate, and I wish people would stop trying)—Klam is funny in her own fashion. In fact, we can find any number of instances where she made me laugh out loud: her mother worried about finding "true love" (i.e., marriage) quickly, else be stuck "with a flying monkey;" an ex's appreciation of a favored CD (Enya) was "discovered . . . on the Crystal Light iced tea commercial;" a throwaway line about Mel Stottlemyre. Hell, just using the words "Mel Stottlemyre" gets you five stars. That is a goodreads rule.

Oh, occasionally, the jokes fall flat. Maybe too reliant upon pop-cultural references, lines can seem less incisive about the person or situation they're revealing and more like shtick. (She refers to her mother's tendency to narrate their travels around their village as "Jewish Eye for the Hick Town," a joke which seems to have a limited shelf-life and was less useful at nailing down her mother than others—like the flying monkey, above.) So, take away two stars.

However, when I made somewhat disappointed reference to (one of my comedy gods) Albert Brooks' last film as "too much shtick," one of my friends whispered "Mike Reynolds hates the Jews!" Besides being funny, even if he borrowed it from Andy Kindler, it made me feel bad. Because I love the Jews. To prove I'm not anti-semitic with that shtick comment, I give the book back a star, or maybe two.

And that made me think some more about comedy: comedy is usually a sharp pointy stick. Poking fun, sometimes aggressively enough to break the skin. Or skewer. But Klam works this amazing magic, throughout. It is comedy that never loses its teeth yet never rips out a throat; her digs reveal her delight in the very people being teased. Further, her comedy embraces the ironic distance of the narrator's perspective without losing any emotional connection. And every now and then, Klam's witty writing attains a perfect poetry at the synchronicity of snipe and snog: after a few fine, funny lines about her mother's ineptitude in the kitchen, she closes the section noting that "[t:]he considerable smoke in the kitchen at every meal made us feel like we were eating in a dream." That line is multivalent, man. To be funny and to be moving, biting but never bitter? Good gravy. That's six or seven stars.

So, where are we at? I'm bad with math, but believe me—-my star rating for Klam's really fine book reflects much difficult figuring, extended periods of contemplation. Complex acts of ratiocination. It was much harder work than the book, which was a fast, lovely delight of a read.
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Julie rated it:

07/19/08

bookshelves: wrote-it

The New York Times
May 18, 2008
Mommy’s Dearest
By GINIA BELLAFANTE

PLEASE EXCUSE MY DAUGHTER
By Julie Klam.
261 pp. Riverhead Books. $22.95.

Let us begin by eradicating all suspicion: Julie Klam’s memoir of growing up a coddled daughter of Westchester County bears no sign of narrative inauthenticity. In “Please Excuse My Daughter,” there are no discernable lies masking dark hopes of literary recognition.

Klam’s loving family never loses everything they own — their hors...more The New York Times
May 18, 2008
Mommy’s Dearest
By GINIA BELLAFANTE

PLEASE EXCUSE MY DAUGHTER
By Julie Klam.
261 pp. Riverhead Books. $22.95.

Let us begin by eradicating all suspicion: Julie Klam’s memoir of growing up a coddled daughter of Westchester County bears no sign of narrative inauthenticity. In “Please Excuse My Daughter,” there are no discernable lies masking dark hopes of literary recognition.

Klam’s loving family never loses everything they own — their horses and tennis court and nine bedrooms in Katonah — only to scavenge their way back to dignity somewhere in public housing. A child of the ’70s and ’80s, Klam doesn’t abandon herself to drugs or cults or radical South American political interests. When she writes of her jovial grandfather Saul and his card-playing at a Florida retirement community; of her game Aunt Mattie of Manhattan and Montauk; of her best friend, the diligent editor; of her father the generous insurance man and her mother the Artemis of the outlet malls, we have no cause to believe that she has deceived and dissembled to give voice to the oppressed and unheard.

So what is this cozy little affair, this tale without high highs or low lows, this memoir equivalent to a municipal bond? Klam’s book is an amiable one and yet still an account of affliction, the story of a young woman embarking on her New York adulthood plagued by the leprosy of the affluent, a paralyzing failure of ambition. Klam, in her 20s, has vague notions of becoming a writer, but the idea of doing anything seems to fill her with the fear of missing out on television, or dinner, or naps. An appreciation of free time was fostered in her rather early. The book’s title refers to the habit Klam’s mother, Marcia, maintained for encouraging a giddy truancy in her child. Marcia would write notes to get Julie out of school, turning her daughter’s young life into one long ladies’ day of lunch and consumer jubilation. On legitimate days off, during the summer, Klam received poolside instructionals in monied femininity from Marcia and her three sisters — “the Jewish Gang of Four.” She writes warmly of their imparted wisdom: “Although, they explained carefully, there were face-lifts, eye-lifts, neck-lifts and boob-lifts, science had yet to discover the cure for that Great Disintegrator of marriages, the sun-damaged chest.” This kind of tutelage is hardly destined to produce another Samantha Power. In Klam’s case her mother’s world leaves her ill equipped for achieving even a baseline of self-sufficiency.

As a culture, we flagellate ourselves for the performative demands we make of our children, and the poignancy of Klam’s book — what elevates it from seeming too slight or just plain unnecessary — is its depiction of a parenting style that is radically opposite and just as perilous. There is a danger to abiding maternal devotion when it demands nothing but companionship in return. Klam graduated in the bottom 10 percent of her high school class, thanks in large part to a mother who above all sought a best friend, a woman who wore the costumes of women’s liberation without ever slipping into any of its grounding ideologies. (You imagine asking her to identify “the problem with no name,” and her citing bad parking at Bloomingdale’s.) Though Klam has set out to do little more than tell the story of her journey toward responsibility — fiscal, marital, professional — she has written as effective a testament to the value of a working mother as any intended polemic.

Klam isn’t built for polemic; she seems far too sweet. To review a memoir is always in some sense to review the life and sensibility of the person writing it, and to Julie Klam, daughter, niece, wife, mother, friend, sister, one is inclined to award a dozen stars. Throughout the book, I fantasized about calling her and saying something like: “Hey, let’s get pedicures. I’ll bring the SnackWells!” Though her style might derive too heavily from the women’s magazine world where she came of age, she writes without bitterness or lamentation. During her dark moments, you feel sorrier for her than she ever seems to feel for herself.

It is of course the writer’s curse that what girds a virtuous character too often undermines a literary effort. Klam’s commitment to her mother is admirably kind-hearted and even enviable — they talk daily and for a very long time — but it keeps her from more aggressively excavating the roots of all that maternal neediness. Marcia Klam is the most interesting and complicated woman in her daughter’s beloved sorority — as a girl, she gets into the academically elite Hunter High School in New York, but never goes — and in the end, she remains the biggest mystery of all.

Ginia Bellafante is a television critic at The Times.

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Holly rated it:

07/10/08

Read in July, 2008

Allow me to preface this review by stating the fact that typically, I enjoy memoirs. Memoirs, in my opinion, mark the struggles, triumphs, courage and stamina of a person. They signify a life that has truly been lived and allow a person to share their lives with others who may benefit from reading their story.

Julie Klam was born and raised in a Jewish family where her mother and many other Jewish wives and women in general believed that women did not work. Instead, they married rich men, spe...more Allow me to preface this review by stating the fact that typically, I enjoy memoirs. Memoirs, in my opinion, mark the struggles, triumphs, courage and stamina of a person. They signify a life that has truly been lived and allow a person to share their lives with others who may benefit from reading their story.

Julie Klam was born and raised in a Jewish family where her mother and many other Jewish wives and women in general believed that women did not work. Instead, they married rich men, spent their husband’s money on luxuries that purely benefit the way they look and eat and nothing else and have a few children before they are expected to get a job and contribute to their families. Julie was not only raised in this lifestyle, she inhabited this lifestyle and truly made it her own.

Her mother frequently took her out of school so she could go shopping and wear the best clothes out of all of the girls she went to school with because she was raised thinking that that was the important part of life–The best clothes, the best hair, the best nails and so on. Because of her upbringing, Julie did not receive the education that she deserved as a young child growing up.

As every adult knows, there comes a time when you need to become an adult; to grow up and take responsibility for your life and eventually, for your family. Sadly, Julie Klam never did break away from the way she was raised and instead, formed a lifestyle around fear and laziness.

On the back cover of Julie Klam’s memoir, Please Excuse My Daughter, you will see a laundry list of pseudo-accomplishments. She had attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where it was a requirement of hers to watch a countless number of movies. She was an intern at Late Night with David Letterman, she landed her first “real” job at VH1 on the popular music video show, Pop Up Video, where she met and later married the show’s producer, Paul Leo. It was for Pop Up Video that she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Class Writing; however, as good as “Emmy Nominated Writer” looks by your name, she simply received that nomination in conjunction with the rest of the writing staff of the show. Since then, she was also published in O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour and Rolling Stone, although you learn in her book that her close friend works for Rolling Stone, so it is obvious to see how she landed that gig.

Julie Klam’s life has been a series of excuses. Excuses as to why she had never had a real job that she could stick with and not because she simply enjoys the life of freelancing, but because she is simply incapable of being an adult. Throughout her memoir, where at 257 pages, was 256 pages too long, Julie whines, complains and feels sorry for herself for not being able to highlight her hair or go to Saks; she is truly her mother’s daughter.

Julie Klam simply wrote an entire memoir based upon what most “mommy bloggers” are writing about now, yet most mommy bloggers are far more entertaining and don’t lose their reader after a few posts. As a matter of a fact, Heather Armstrong of Dooce did write a book and from what I have been hearing, it’s a hell of a lot more interesting to a broader range of people than what the reviews of Please Excuse My Daughter are receiving across the board.

While Please Excuse My Daughter is written very well and some of the times is absolutely hilarious, Julie Klam’s memoir is long, dry and sticks to your throat as you try to swallow it. In my (most humble) opinion, I believe that the next time Julie Klam finds herself in another slump and needs money desperately, instead of writing a memoir (because this one surely is not going to make her the millions she lies awake dreaming of at night) she should opt for children’s books. She has a wonderful sense of humor and a talent for writing humor and should apply her talents to something not so involved; something that will not let her drag out a story and pretend it is epic when it simply falls flat.

Taken from Julie’s own blog, in a post written about Goodreads, a site where people are able to keep track of the books they want to read, have read and write reviews, you can tell what a self-assured woman Klam is when she responds to those who do not enjoy her book and agree with her that she is brilliant by saying, “…I’m thinking of leaving the Author Program, too, because I want to write nasty things to people who give my book low ratings and I don’t want them to know it’s me. (Like “Sorry, I didn’t write the book for half-wits.”)
You know?”...less

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Patrick rated it:

06/24/08

bookshelves: memoirsandbios

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Patrick by: Dan Menaker
recommends it for: everybody

So why not 5 stars? Here's my overly-lawyerly explanation. If I gave this book 5 stars, everybody would be like, "Oh, sure, Patrick, you gave that book 5 stars because you have, ,a link exchange thing going with Julie, not because you really liked the book." I guess I thought by giving the book 4 stars, you'd all see that I was rating based on merit alone, and would be more likely to heed my review. I don't know, maybe it's a flawed strategy. I really liked this book. I think eve...more So why not 5 stars? Here's my overly-lawyerly explanation. If I gave this book 5 stars, everybody would be like, "Oh, sure, Patrick, you gave that book 5 stars because you have, ,a link exchange thing going with Julie, not because you really liked the book." I guess I thought by giving the book 4 stars, you'd all see that I was rating based on merit alone, and would be more likely to heed my review. I don't know, maybe it's a flawed strategy. I really liked this book. I think everybody should read it (I mean not everybody. If you're a self-important ass hole, then by all means, don't), and I think everybody would like it.

For me, reading a memoir should illicit a couple of responses. One should be plain old recognition. In almost everything I've read and loved, I've found something of myself in it. And man, I'm all over this book. "Lacking motivation and failing to find employment suited to your abilities?" Check. "Depression caused by endless hours of daytime TV in lieu of a job?" Oh, yeah. I've been there. “Quoting liberally from the movie Diner so as to alienate all people not in the know?” You better believe I’ve done that. Seriously, there were moments when I felt like Julie Klam had been spying on my life, then wrote about it. But what makes a great memoir great is that it takes those circumstances, those moments that everyone's felt, and expresses them like no one has before. Klam does that over and over again.

You'll hear about the humor in this book, and it is funny (I laughed out loud quite a few times), but what got me is that the humor doesn't overwhelm the other emotions on display. There are moments in this book that are heartbreaking. Klam lets them play. She doesn't use every instance as a chance to make a cheap joke, and when she does decide to crack a joke, you'll just want to sob.

It's really a great book. I read it in 3 days, and looked forward to it every minute. If I had one complaint, it's that the conceit of the book, that Klam's mother didn't prepare her for adult life because she was busy pampering her through childhood, doesn't hold up throughout the book. It comes together nicely at the end when Klam becomes a mother, but there are moments when that thread seems gone altogether. That's not much of a criticism, in that the book doesn't need that central conceit.

Everybody should read this book. I'll stop rambling now.
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18 comments

Edan rated it:

07/03/08

recommended to Edan by: Patrick Brown

First thing's first: My household is obsessed with Julie Klam. Patrick and I talk about her all the time (really), and Omar's collar reads: WWJKD? (What would Julie Klam do?). All three of us liked this book, and we all adore Julie as a human being. Anyone who becomes my husband's #1 Blog Fan is golden in my book (and Omar's).

I never read memoirs, mostly because I'm partial to made up stories about people, or nonfiction about things I can eat, so I don't have much to compare this one to. I ...more

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20 comments

Marie rated it:

07/20/08

bookshelves: memoirs, nonfiction, women

I would give this one 2-1/2 stars. I did keep reading, and I finished it. The writer was brought up as a pampered, privileged rich kid and was not taught to be independent or self-reliant. As an adult, she stumbles again and again, but someone is always there to bail her out (even though she doesn't feel that way). Despite the fact that she hardly ever went to school as a kid, she somehow ended up getting through college (and getting good grades), and lands two coveted entertainment jobs: (1) wo...more

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Liz rated it:

07/25/08

Read in July, 2008

This book was a quick read and pleasant enough, though it certainly doesn't contain any new or earth-shattering insights. Julie Klam's description of her life as a spectacularly spoiled and unmotivated child and twenty-something were relatively entertaining (especially her description of her relationship with a former mobster who'd been newly-released from jail). However, her retelling of her engagement, wedding, honeymoon and initiation into parenthood seemed superfluous, and her recounting o...more

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Ginnie rated it:

07/23/08

bookshelves: memoirs, women

In a reverse twist on the fairy tale, this sweet story is about a princess who grew up and changed into a woman. I received two messages as a child - my paternal grandmother told me, "Jones women don't work" i,e, your husband will take care of you.) ; my maternal grandmother, the first woman dentist to graduate from Northwestern, told me, "You are intelligent and getting a good education in order to make your own choices is important." The notion of cutting me any slack at...more

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Krysia rated it:

07/25/08

bookshelves: memoir

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Krysia by: found it at the local library
recommends it for: women who grew up in Katonah in the 70s-80s

Difficult book to rate because the world certainly didn't NEED this book about a girl who grew up wealthy in Katonah, and whose mother used to keep her home from school just to go shop at Bloomingdale's and have lunch. Although she graduates from NYU, she is ill-prepared for the "real world." However,she manages to land a job on Late Night with Dave Letterman, write for Pop-Up Video, etc. amidst stints of unemployment and boo hoo she ends up marrying a hardworking but far from wealthy ...more

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Nicky rated it:

06/26/08

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: all the ladies, woot woot

I both identify with and am very jealous of, Julie Klam. I was born to write for Pop-Up Video. Or anything on Vh-1, for that matter. But enough about me. There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments in this book, which I treasure. Julie Klam's conversational style made this a comfortable read and I found myself rooting for her the whole way. This is an enjoyable book with enough substance so you won't feel all empty inside when you're done. You'll just wish for more.

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Laurie rated it:

05/12/08

Read in May, 2008

The author is hilarious, smart, self-deprecating, and relatable (at least to me). Her humor and experiences transcend beautifully into novel form. I bought this novel knowing nothing about it or the author, and realized after its story ended (too soon) that I had read and loved many of her magazine articles over the last year. I'll be looking for more from her, for sure!

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Jackie rated it:

06/17/08

Read in June, 2008

For me to give two stars to a memoir is pretty rare. It is my favorite genre (sp?). However, for a memoir to keep my interest, the person needs to have a) been through extenuating life circumstances that are interesting to read about or b) if they have a lame life, at least write about it in a witty manner. This book failed on both accounts. This woman (who surprisingly wrote for Letterman and pop up video) wrote a pretty bland memoir that left me wondering how it even got published....I would s...more

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Dave rated it:

07/18/08

A fun book. A good beach book. Funny. Sad. Baffling. Worth buying and reading. Recommend to certain people and not to others. Well written. Gave me the impression that there is an entire world out there that I avoided for good reason.

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Patricia rated it:

06/26/08

bookshelves: reading-it-again-out-loud-to-my-swe

Read in January, 2008

Wonderful - makes me laugh and cry and love your family even more - who knew?
Congratulations Julie!

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Cameronne rated it:

05/11/08

Read in May, 2008

This book was pretty good. The author is very witty. Quick read!

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Tlb rated it:

06/08/08

Read in June, 2008

Quick, light read. I am not sure what the point of this book was - I think what I took away was: rich slacker girl makes her way in the city. Some rough patches along the way. She is a funny writer though. Took me about 2 days to read. Save it for the beach

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Elizabeth rated it:

07/02/08

Read in July, 2008

Eh, this was just okay. There were passages I enjoyed here and there and her writing is good, but about a third of the way through I contemplated not finishing it. The last 1/4 of the book or so was my favorite part.

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Jess rated it:

04/25/08

bookshelves: -auto-biographies

Read in April, 2008

Cute, quick read.

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Sarah rated it:

06/22/08

This is a memior and I had a difficult time believing that all of this actually happened to here and what good connections she had to be able to bounce back after several poor choices.

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