Liesl Weisglass is instantly recognizable as the butt of a thousand Jewish-mother jokes. “She was godlike, bigger than God actually, because God never cooked for me,” says her son. When, as a grown man, he phones with the news that the love of his life has died of leukemia, she chides him for not calling sooner: “Dad called the hospital. They told us. A beautiful way to find out.” But Liesl is no cartoon. Her son recalls her flouncing around the family’s Queens, N.Y., apartment with her robe hanging open, descending on his bed in the middle of the night when he was young, like “a road-company Barbara Stanwyck, but more frightening.”
Inverting the old theatrical saw that comedy is tragedy with the last act lopped off, Bergman pushes jokes about mother love to their logical – and horrifying – conclusion. The result is a novel that makes you laugh and gives you the yips all at once. Its only major flaw is a happy ending that, in the face of what’s gone before, is simply unbelievable. But a weak finish is not enough to spoil Bergman’s weirdly stunning accomplishment: his Liesl Weisglass ranks with fiction’s most appalling mothers.
title: “Books Laughs In The Least Likely Places” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-15” author: “Susan Rush”
Liesl Weisglass is instantly recognizable as the butt of a thousand Jewish-mother jokes. “She was godlike, bigger than God actually, because God never cooked for me,” says her son. When, as a grown man, he phones with the news that the love of his life has died of leukemia, she chides him for not calling sooner: “Dad called the hospital. They told us. A beautiful way to find out.” But Liesl is no cartoon. Her son recalls her flouncing around the family’s Queens, N.Y., apartment with her robe hanging open, descending on his bed in the middle of the night when he was young, like “a road-company Barbara Stanwyck, but more frightening.”
Inverting the old theatrical saw that comedy is tragedy with the last act lopped off, Bergman pushes jokes about mother love to their logical – and horrifying – conclusion. The result is a novel that makes you laugh and gives you the yips all at once. Its only major flaw is a happy ending that, in the face of what’s gone before, is simply unbelievable. But a weak finish is not enough to spoil Bergman’s weirdly stunning accomplishment: his Liesl Weisglass ranks with fiction’s most appalling mothers.
