Book Review - "S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Insane Letters She's Mailed Him" by Adam Chester

At it's simplest, Adam Chester's "S'Mother" can be summarized as a story of an over-protective single mother. When I first began reading, I had a fairly good idea of what it was I would find within its 170 pages. Honestly, I expected a story I'd heard (and shared) many times before; the 'my-parents-are-crazy-look-how-they-messed-me-up' narrative. While it certainly contained some of those melodramatic elements, it was the dark (and often inappropriate) humor and the sense of genuine love underneath all the bitching that kept me reading through the tears in my eyes.

While Chester explains that his mother had always been a little kooky, the real insanity gold didn't begin until his freshman year at USC. With thousands of miles between him and his Miami-based mother, the expectation of freedom wasn't terribly farfetched. But as anyone with... well, a mother knows, Pooh-Pooh (a nickname used humiliatingly often) quickly learns that distance has absolutely no effect on the level of how damn annoying they can be. Joan Chester's first two letters are innocent enough: "Wear a coat", "Call me more", "Dry your dishes before you put them away". Honestly, they read as a bit boring. It's the third letter, however, that finally managed to capture my interest:

   Tues.

    Adam -

    Don't have anything to do with your paternal grandmother -

    Love,

    Mom

While Chester's need for chronology is understandable, I would have suggested he start from that letter, as it is by far the most interesting of the first ones. It's quirky, mysterious, and just plain odd compared to the usual maternal pleasantries. And yet, it is the letter that first accurately portrays Joan Chester and how "usual, maternal pleasantries" just aren't her thing. 

Throughout the next twenty plus years, the letters only get stranger and stranger. The most intriguing letters, from a reader's point of view, are the ones that quite literally seem to pop out of nowhere, often sent alongside whatever happened to jog the idea in Joan Chester's mind. Some particularly beautiful gems include:

   Sat.

   Adam -

   Do me a favor -

      Please don't eat sushi!

      Thank-you -

   Love,

   Mom (complete with a newspaper clipping worm-infested sushi)

Or this lovely piece, scrawled on a postcard of a man getting shot at:

    #1.

  Hi!!

  Here I am in NYC now!

  Love to all -

  Joan Chester

  6 Charles St. - 1D

  NY, NY 10014

And then, of course, my personal favorite letter, which happened to be nothing but a dime taped to a piece of lined, yellow paper. To "normal" people, this would be considered beyond strange, but it probably had some sort of special meaning to Joan Chester. 

Whiles the letters on their own provide an interesting read, it is Chester's commentary between the pages that give us true insight into what this book is truly "about": the unconditional love family has for each other. Without  the background information Chester provides the reader, many of these letters would just read as insane. While, on the outside, it may seem as if he's trying to drag his mother under the insanity bus, the background information almost serves as Chester trying to justify her acts. In a way, he is standing up for her while trying to bad-talk her. And, really, that's the strange dynamic of families.