I must have put this book down 50 times wondering how such a boring book ever got published! Was he pissed at his publisher, did he have a contract he needed to fulfill? This is a painful chore to read. The screwed up family isn’t funny in their dysfunctional ways, they are boring.
Cranky Theroux usually is entertaining,in his pissy ways, but not this time, this book is just plain awful. ( )

"Don't say 'I'm sorry.' Never say 'sorry.'" He wagged his finger. "A man doesn't say 'sorry.'" p.86 (Now I know why my ex-husband (a Latino) has never in his life said"I'm sorry," though he lost me.)

"Brazilian food is delicious. There's music. Gauchos come to your table and give you pieces of meat." p. 429. Reminding me of the time my soon-to-be closed University gave the remaining employees a Xmas lunch at a so-called Brazilian steakhouse and the waiters coming around with disgusting pieces of dead Animals on a stick that they carved from onto your plate. "I'm a vegan," I kept telling them.

Besides that? Reminds me more than a little about my neurotic family. My mom and dad had 7 kids, just like the family in Mother Land. They had their favorites: the 2 boys, and the baby of The family. The rest of us paired off, and dynamics changed as we grew older. One of the sisters, my original"best friend," determined to be my mom's favorite, succeeded in convincing my mom to gaslight me, as she herself did, when I confronted her, my feelings hurt at excluding me from a visit.

This is autobiographical, and, true to the author's form, the narrator ends the story by moving to a small village in Chiapas with his mother's caretaker, a woman the age of his grandchildren.

An interesting, though over-long read. Something like probing a sore tooth with your tongue.

( )

Paul Theroux is one of my favourite writers, and this highly autobiographical novel is maybe the best yet.
Narrator Jay Justus is an author pushing 60. One of a family of eight (including stillborn Angela, whose undefiled memory is ever-present.) But these are no Waltons; all in thrall to Mother..."unreadable and enigmatic, at times unintelligible, like a wrathful deity."
Mother's purpose - her strategies often unclear and unfathomable- appears to be Power at all costs. She plays divide and rule;
"The tyrant's nightmare was to have all his agents of unrest in one room. Mother feared having us all together, facing her. She needed us apart, ecause she ttreated each of us differently, and it helped her that we were at odds with one another. United, we might oppose her; separate, quarreling, uncertain and unequal, we needed her."
And thus through carefully connived insults, gossip, favouring one over another, the siblings are forever set against one another, while Mother reigns supreme. As brother Floyd- another author- observes: "The Furies! The betrayals! The cannibalism! It's the House of Atreus!"
In less able hands, this could have been an over-long diatrbe; as it was, the characters are all so vividly drawn- the fat, acquisitive sisters; acerbic - and very witty- Floyd; bossy, sententious Fred...- that I was entirely hooked in the story.
Utterly brilliant, up there with John Updike as fantastic modern literature. ( )

Mother Land was a very long and challenging book to read. I didn't relate to any the characters and it took me until the end to have a better understanding of mother and the other siblings. It is not a book that I would recommend to the casual reader as I didn't understand their horrible relationship and their need to relive the spats, fights and general undergoing of each other within the family.

The stories within the story will remain with me for some time but not in a positive way. The authors ability to write well and to paint a picture with his words was excellent. I just didn’t enjoy or appreciate the verbal pictures he painted, the degradation of mother or the berating and hurting of each other with words. These interactions is not something I want to remember, even if they were a picture of a truly dysfunctional family.

Fo me, the writing and language in the book was excellent and well executed, but the length of the book and the repetition of complaints about everything related to the family was depressing and not enjoyable. The continual put-downs and self pity described throughout this tome left me feeling uncomfortable and disgusted with this entire group of self serving and badly damaged characters, mother included. I give it 3 stars. ( )

Para los habitantes de Cape Cod, madre es un ejemplo de piedad, austeridad y trabajo duro. Para su marido y sus siete hijos, es egoísta, a veces mezquina, siempre tirana y disfruta enfrentándolos entre sí. Angela, su favorita que murió en el parto, es la única capaz de entenderla, según dice a los demás. Entre estos se incluyen Fred, un abogado de oficio; Floyd, un divertido profesor; un par de inseparables hermanas cuya devoción por la figura materna ha consumido sus vidas, y JP, el narrador, un escritor de éxito cuyo trabajo menosprecia.

Tierra madrees un punzante retrato del impacto que el narcisismo materno puede tener en una familia, un cautivador, doloroso y a menudo divertido relato sobre una gran familia que discute, conspira, se confabula y finalmente vence los dolorosos lazos que la unen.