I don’t recommend many books on this site, but I highly recommend you read The Bad Mother by Nancy Rommelmann.
From Amazon: “A first novel by the award-winning journalist Nancy Rommelmann, The Bad Mother is set among Hollywood’s transient population of street kids….Hollywood is hard on everyone, from aspiring actors and actresses to those on the way back down, but it is particularly indifferent to the children who ghost along the boulevard, unseen by the tourists squatting over Marilyn Monroe’s hand prints in front of Grauman’s Chinese. As Rommelmann explains, “Hollywood herself is the bad mother of the title.”
I read this powerful book in one night and couldn’t sleep for hours afterwards. The Bad Mother is a gripping and heartrending tale about broken people clinging to the hardest edges of life. With sharp and unsentimental prose, Rommelmann shows us a world that shouldn’t exist, but does. I’ll never forget reading it. You won’t either.
I’m quite a new reader of this blog, and I’m loving it. I’m headed to Chapters tomorrow to buy a copy of Keep The Change, your opinions seem trustworthy so I’ll pick up this one too!
Ordering it right now. I hope it doesn’t keep me awake though.
Great suggestion, downloaded to my nook and didn’t stop til the last page. Now I can’t stop thinking about those kids!
Thanks for the tip!
Aloha from Waikiki;
Comfort Spiral
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Thank you, Steve, so much for the kind write-up. And Venus and Carole for buying and reading xx
Thanks for the tip. Appreciate it
There was a question posed to the Reddit community today about the rudest things a waiter has ever said to people. Thought it might be of interest to you.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jblft/rudest_thing_a_waiter_has_ever_said_to_you/
I don’t know if you actually read the comments left on your blog anymore, or if the novelty of being as awesome as you are has faded. Regardless, I feel compelled to let you know that I recently received “Waiter Rant” the book for my 20th birthday. I am also a server. I just wanted you to know that your book, along with “Service Included” by Phoebe Damrosch have really opened my eyes to the fact that serving is not just a profession, it’s a lifestyle. I’ve only ever worked service industry jobs; my first one as a busboy in some Amici’s-esque hellhole. While I can appreciate that hearing praise from some anonymous internet might-be-nutjob is nowhere near as satisfying as hearing it from Anthony Bourdain, I just wanted to let you know that reading your book allowed me to let go of a lot of anger I’ve been carrying around from some of the nouveux riche crapbags I’ve dealt with. I wanted to thank you for that. In the words of Blazing Saddles: “Keep the faith Brother!”
Waiter – Glad you enjoyed it! And yes, I read all the comments!
Former Tampa FL streetkid here,
THanks for posting this book. Bit traumatizing when I read it, but things like what she wrote needs to get out to the public. Where I live now, no one can believe what I went through to the extant that local social services up here called down there to verify my story.
Its a vicous life so many think is only in the movies not realizing cinema is a tame version of the reality.
Thanks