“Sarah Palin loves Trig. She is celebrated for making the choice to have this baby, seen as courageous and noble. Already I have read of another young woman, encouraged by Palin’s example, who made that same choice. I would like to celebrate their decision the same way I would like to be heartened by Palin’s words, because I believe that disability is part of life. What Palin and her supporters fail to understand is that babyhood passes in an instant. If Palin truly believes that ‘every baby… has potential,’ she needs to spread the word that in a democracy, we care for those who need support.”

“One of the most extraordinary, awful, funny, candid, heart-rending, brave books about motherhood I’ve ever read.”

Michael Berryhill praises Jane Bernstein’s Rachel in the World: A Memoir in the Houston Chronicle: “I am not entirely sure how someone who is not raising a mentally retarded child will take this book. But as a parent who is, I am grateful for this tough, honest and often angry account. It’s a book I have been looking for, a road map for the years ahead.”

There was no sign in the window, no employee of the bookstore interested in saying hello. Only a table and a stack of books. If I say there were only two people there, you might feel sorry that I drove all morning for nothing, but in fact, one of the people who showed up was an honest-to-goodness fan, a woman who contacted me some time ago to tell me that she loved Loving Rachel so much she reread it and wondered where Rachel was now. And when I told her about the new book, she read that and drove to the bookstore on Saturday with her lovely, very patient 14-year-old daughter. She was more upset than I. The second person was Rachel Simon, who wrote Riding the Bus with My Sister—a book she vigorously promoted, full time for four years. Before her book’s publication she’d worked in a bookstore, so she immediately rearranged the stacks of my book, hawked the book to strangers, insisting that a few of them buy a copy, made me sign all of them, and then pulled me aside and lectured me to very good effect on the importance of marketing my own work.

The next day, a friend hosted an event at her house and about 15 people attended. It was a terrific group—very interested in the book itself and, as a group, very insistent that I get out there and promote the book.

Drove home in the pouring rain. Exhausting. Absolutely worth it.

*****

Jane Bernstein, a professor of English and creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University, is the author of Rachel in the World: A Memoir, Loving Rachel: A Family’s Journey from Grief, Bereft—A Sister’s Story, and other books. For more, visit www.janebernstein.net.

Then there’s the pleasure of finding myself in a wonderful bookstore like Malaprop’s in Asheville. I arrived about a half hour before my presentation was scheduled and it was barely enough time to wander through this wonderful store. (I ended up returning the next day.) The feel of the place is just great. Shelves of books at various angles. Lots of tables. Plenty of redundancy, so it was easy to find a book in more than one place. A friendly book-loving staff.  The espresso maker was turned off during my presentation (where there were a number of strangers!) and there was the chance afterwards to hang out and talk to people.

Quail Ridge in Raleigh had a very different feel but was also pleasant. Located in the same strip of stores as Whole Foods, it wasn’t as quirky as Malaprop’s, but the store, like Malaprop’s, was also was a welcome change from corporate-looking bookstores and a good place for booklovers to browse. As soon as I showed up, one of the staff asked me to sign my publicity photo so they could put it in the bathroom. “That’s where we put all the writers,” she said.  “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

I’m in distinguished company on that wall.

*****

Jane Bernstein, a professor of English and creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University, is the author of Rachel in the World: A Memoir, Loving Rachel: A Family’s Journey from Grief, Bereft—A Sister’s Story, and other books. For more, visit http://www.janebernstein.net/.

The November 11, 2007, issue of the Washington Post contains a review of Jane Bernstein’s Rachel in the World: A Memoir. “The book makes it clear that we, as a society, are not set up to help people like her or their families, particularly as money for social services continues to dwindle. But what gives the book its strength is Bernstein’s ability to write as expressively about the times when she herself was nearing madness as about her deep love for her daughter.”