BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Bridge Ladies: A Memoir’

OPINION:

THE BRIDGE LADIES: A MEMOIR

By Betsy Lerner

Harper Wave, $25.99, 299 pages

 

Appealing is the word that kept recurring in my mind as I read literary agent and author Betsy Lerner’s memoir of getting to know her mother’s circle of contemporaries who have gathered each Monday yea these many long decades for lunch, bridge and much, much more. Getting to know again is more like it, for Ms. Lerner is quite frank in detailing the evolution from childhood fascination through cool teenage dismissal of them as “square” to being pretty much oblivious to them in adulthood.

But moving back to her hometown of New Haven, Connecticut with a daughter of her own and even more staying with her mother to help her recuperate from surgery brought this quartet of ladies into a new, sharper focus. Suddenly she saw beyond the stereotypes she had so cavalierly placed them in to see that they are truly interesting people: not just as relics of a bygone age, although there is that aspect too:

“Of the ladies who still prepare lunch, Bette, Rhoda, and my mother, none has relaxed their standards. This is most evident in the parade of napkin rings I’ve come to witness gracing their tables: silver, porcelain, tortoiseshell, bamboo, and Bakelite, I marvel at the care taken. Bette’s table could be on display at the Smithsonian: Mid-Century North American Dining Room, Circa 1958. The ladies tell me they are likely the last bridge club in the area that serves lunch, the last bastion of civilization.”

With maturity, she has gained an appreciation not merely of the staunch integrity behind keeping up their standards but a glimpse into how such continuity helps them bear the inevitable depredations of age, infirmity and loss of various props and loved ones. She even starts learning to play bridge and taking the scary leap of playing with this gang, an indication of her commitment not only to get to know them better but — almost but not quite — to become a part of the magic circle.

Nowhere is this truer than in her regaining a real closeness to a mother from whom she had distanced herself from for many years. Not only is this in itself an immensely emotion-filled tale, the most moving part of a book full of moving moments, but is instructive as a portrait of the generation gap so typical of mid-20th century American society. Without any terrible issues between them, Betsy and Roz Lerner are an example of the powerful sway conformity to social and familial fads can exert on relations between one generation and its successor.

Happily the pendulum has swung, although some might qualify that adverb in view of a tendency toward over-dependency on the part of the children and parental clinging. But seeing the Lerners grow closer and regain true intimacy, albeit within the bounds of their distinctly different personalities and not always comfortable changing roles is instructive, fascinating and deeply touching.

Although lots of details are directly revealed and incidents both past and present probed, Ms. Lerner is the kind of writer who can convey a great deal through beautifully recounted lighter experiences. A case in point is her witnessing her mother enacting what is now a unique ritual: now that her friend Bette buys hers from Costco, she is the last Jewish grandmother in the area who still makes homemade gefilte fish.

By now Betsy is sufficiently attuned to tradition to be “scandalized” at Bette’s cultural apostasy, but she is appalled when “the ladies say I should learn how to make the fish from my mom. Not happening.” As the author of a book called “Food and Loathing,” Ms. Lerner’s reaction is not surprising. Nor is her horror at her mother’s gouging out the eyes of the fish prior to grinding it, or her aversion to the “disgusting” smell or even more pungent phrase “fish stink” produced by the elaborate process. As someone who grew up with those odors I can attest to their amazing strength and also to the deliciousness of the end product, in a totally different class from what comes from a jar.

Ms. Lerner has no such olfactory or gustatory appreciation, but I do not think it an exaggeration to say that there is a bonding achieved during the process, despite the sarky banter between the women — and not just about fish — so well conveyed. This is emblematic of a lovely growth in understanding and appreciation on both sides throughout the book. It’s not that Ms. Lerner has abandoned her life experiences and attitudes and hard-won identity, but she has gained a new understanding of what very different ones have given her mother and her generation.

“The Bridge Ladies” operates on so many levels, drawing on that venerable trio of sociology, anthropology and psychology, as well as the more newfangled science of gerontology — and good old-fashioned family history and drama. But it never gets caught up in any one groove, moving seamlessly and effortlessly to produce its many insights and moving moments. Reading it is a delight.

• Martin Rubin is a writer and critic in Pasadena, Calif.