“’Your mother has an obsessions. You should be able to understand that.’ He tilted his head toward the stable.”
Peggy and her mother, Thelma, have just about one thing in common – the ability to be obsessed with something. For Peggy, it’s horses. For Thelma, it’s the Baltimore Orioles. In almost every other area, mother and daughter clash. In a series of stories about her childhood and early adult years, Peggy shows hos Thelma’s strong will molded their family. About My Mother is a book full of family, mother and daughter relationships, horses, baseball and love.
Peggy has a strong voice as she tells stories about her mother and her own childhood. Thelma strived for a clean house and wanted to keep her two daughters from being idle. Peggy just wanted to play and run and pretend she was riding a horse. Peggy’s parents eventually find her riding lessons and then move to a place where they can have a stable. Their love shines through and when Peggy gets a chance to help her mother reach her dreams later in life, she takes the chance.
In About Your Father, Peggy Rowe shares more family stories, but focuses on ones involving her sons and husband. With the same strong voice, she tells about events she thinks helped shape Mike into the Dirty Jobs celebrity we all know. She talks about how she and her husband got to do commercials and how they adjusted moving from acres of land to a condo. I laughed many times.
Mike Rowe is a well-known celebrity and I recently read his book, The Way I Heard It. In it, he mentions his mother, Peggy, had written a book. I immediately went to add it to my library holds list. I only had to wait about two weeks before it became available. The two forewords are written by Mike Rowe and tell how he initially published the book after several publishers turned down his mother. Then, the book caught on and was published by a company for a second run. She recently wrote a second book, About Your Father, and I read that soon after I finished the first book.
About My Mother and About Your Father are both feel-good books about a family that loves through their differences. I enjoyed the stories and read both in just a few days. Peggy’s voice shows the readers where her son, Mike, got his voice to tell stories. Readers who enjoy reading small biographical snippets will enjoy these books.
Are you a Mike Rowe fan? Have you read any of his mother’s posts? Share your thoughts in the comments!