The possibility of everything A memoir

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Edelman (Motherless Daughters) returns with a charming memoir full of self-deprecating honesty that defies easy categorization. Edelman is forced to seek a solution to the sudden appearance of her three-year-old daughter Maya's violent imaginary friend, "Dodo." Edelman, who believes in "the possibility of everything," but can't place her trust "in anything without visible proof," clashes with her alternatively minded husband and the New Age modes of thinking in her new Los Angeles suburb when seeking an answer. She grieves that her own mother, who died when she was 16, is not there to advise her on matters of parenting. But when Maya's behavior becomes severe, Edelman surprisingly agrees to let her daughter see a shaman in Belize. The journey, which is full of remarkable events, cracks open the foundation of her skepticism just shy of a transformation. The largest stretch of the narrative-the Belize journey- is gripping and vividly detailed, and Edelman occasionally detours into Mayan culture and history. The book is equal parts a meditation on the trials of motherhood and marriage, a travelogue and an exploration of faith, which she braids together into a highly readable, insight-laden narrative. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Author of the best-selling Motherless Daughters, Edelman proffers an illuminating perspective in this elegant, engaging memoir. A loving mother, Edelman was startled and appalled when her three-year-old daughter Maya suddenly attacked her for no apparent reason. When confronted, Maya maintained it wasn't her doing but that her imaginary "friend," Dodo. Dodo's intrusions led to Edelman panicking; her husband suggested a vacation to Belize, where they consulted a shaman. The miraculous wisdom and healing they discover there suggested "the possibility of everything." For parents everywhere. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/09.]-Lynne Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An account of the author's struggles to cope with her young daughter's troublesome imaginary friend. Edelman (Motherless Mothers: How Losing a Mother Shapes the Parent You Become, 2007, etc.) chronicles a period in 2000 when her three-year-old daughter Maya invented an imaginary friend named Dodo. At first the author consulted parenting books, friends and the family pediatrician in Southern California. However, as Maya's aggressive behavior worsened and she started to talk about being under the control of Dodo, her parents feared the onset of an inherited mental illness, or even a spirit possession. The main drama of the story is centered on the family vacation to Belize, during which they toured Mayan ruins, investigated local culture and ancient healing traditions, and, with different degrees of comfort and faith, took their daughter to local shaman healers in search of a cure. Edelman became convinced that Maya's problem was more than a normal developmental phase and was soon persuaded that alternative healing was having a positive effect, leading to a final ritual cure involving a bath of flowers and prayers. This immediately and miraculously led to the Maya's renouncement of her imaginary friend and to the author's growing belief in the efficacy of alternative-healing practices. Though Edelman is an accomplished, mostly insightful writer, the narrative is overly dependent on descriptions of her child's increasingly dramatic temper tantrums. A travel narrative and childrearing memoir that will appeal to those interested in shamanistic healing and other aspects of New Age spirituality. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter One Topanga Canyon, California September 2000 The soft clinks of a metal spoon against stainless steel filter upstairs from the kitchen as Carmen prepares Maya's dinner. Tonight it's pasta with red sauce and a side dish of peas. Carmen hums as she cooks, low thrumming vibrations occasionally broken by a string of high- pitched la- la- la- las. I glance at the digital clock at the bottom of my computer screen. Five twenty-six P.M. In four minutes, I'll go down to sit with Maya for dinner, and relieve Carmen for the evening. Then I'll give Maya her bath and read her The Red Balloon, for the fourth time this week. I'll put her to sleep, watch some TV, get into bed with a book, and wait for Uzi to come home. The ceiling fan churns above my head in determined, repetitive circles. I pinch the fabric of my white cotton tank top away from my chest and angle an exhale between my breasts, trying to dry the thin film of sweat that's settled there. It's late September in southern California, our hottest month of the year, and heat rises precipitously in a house with a wall of windows downstairs. I move my fingers across the keyboard faster, as if the speed of my fingers might stir up a breeze. Today I'm working on a dual review for the Chicago Tribune, two Jewish- themed books that have little in common beyond the religious angle. Whoever paired them probably didn't realize that, and it's my job to figure out how to make them work together in the same review. The first book is a history of New York's Lower East Side, packed with detail and research. The second is a memoir by an American psychotherapist, a single mother who moved to Jerusalem with her school- age daughter to jump- start a new phase of her life. I felt predisposed to like this one, as the American wife of an Israeli- born husband, but each time the mother wrote about putting her rapturous love for her adopted country ahead of her daughter's well- being, I had to force myself to keep reading. As a reviewer I'm supposed to be objective and keep my focus on the text, but I've had to work hard at that with this one. As a mother I found too many times in the book when I wanted to grab the author by the shoulders and shout, "Snap out of it! And put your daughter on a plane back to the United States!" I'm trying to figure out if my reaction reveals a weakness in the book or if it's just a reflection of my parenting and the different choices I imagine I'd make. I know how much sweat and lost sleep goes into every book that's written, and I'm loath to review one harshly until I'm certain my criticism is valid.  Downstairs, Carmen sets Maya's sectional plate and sippy cup on the dining table, the sound of plastic kissing wood. Then there's the scuff of a wooden chair being dragged back across the red tile floor. "La Ma- ya!" Carmen sings out. "It is time for dinner now, please!" I'm still not used to this, having someone else take charge in our kitchen. For the first few weeks after Carmen came to work for us four days a week, we kept circling each other awkwardly at the refrigerator at breakfast, bumping elbows in front of the sink at dinnertime, unsure of who should be doing what and when. Before I moved in with Uzi I'd lived alone for ten years, and I'd developed a highly particular way of getting things done. This is not to say I'm tidy or organized by nature-- sadly, I am not-- but I've always maintained a semblance of order in the kitchen. It's the singular achievement that gives me a sense of domestic competence, as if being able to find the cutting board in the same place every time I need it offers proof that no matter what kind of sorry state the living room might be in at that moment, I do know how to manage a household, after all. Now, whenever I find the bread knife lying in the silverware drawer instead of poking out of its designated slot in the wooden knife block or see leftovers stored in Excerpted from The Possibility of Everything: A Memoir by Hope Edelman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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