Objects in Mirror Are Closer than They Appear: A Memoir

The winner of the Oregon Book Award for creative nonfiction and the Lambda Literary Award for memoir, these essays chronicle some of life's biggest .
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• Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear by Kate Carroll de Gutes

Return to Book Page. Essays that chronicle some of life's biggest dramas: With wit matched by self-compassion and empathy, the essays offer a lesson on the inevitable journey back to the places we all began. Paperback , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

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Lists with This Book. Jun 20, Claudia Putnam rated it it was amazing Shelves: I started out, as the reader, just a bit worried. I was afraid we were in Gretel Ehrlich terrain, where the writing would be beautiful, full of astonishing metaphor, but would skirt the central issue. As in Erhlich's A Match to the Heart, where she goes on and on about what the book is ostensibly about, getting struck by lightning, while making cursory references to her divorce, and all along we are screaming at her: And while we may not discover all the gory det I started out, as the reader, just a bit worried.

And while we may not discover all the gory details about what happened to de Gutes's marriage, we can see that this is in fact a confrontation of the failure of a marriage, which in turn is the confrontation of the development of a self, and of how that self entered into a relationship while it was still developing, and gradually, developed into someone who couldn't stay in that relationship no matter how much that realization hurt.

And how much of a surprise that discovery was. It's also about being queer and butch and learning to embrace that. Though it could be about being driven and type A and brilliant and finding yourself in a relationship what didn't support that. I've been reading about Edith Wharton simultaneously. But more of us already know about that. So the butch part is inherently more interesting, at least right now.

Some of the pieces are long and reflective. In one, "Things You Shouldn't Touch": Her mother makes him tell de Gutes why.

It's because he had already shot the mate. The surviving spouse was just sitting on the nest, waiting and waiting. He had to put it out of its misery, knowing as he did that the missing bird would never come home. That essay had started with a reflection on the author's youth, and on how, before the age of 16, it's hard to even contemplate the idea of parents not being right for one another, and then suddenly one day you wonder, Why doesn't she leave him--doesn't she see what he's like? In one of the most painful pieces, her father calls to say that her mother has had a heart attack and is being taken to the hospital by ambulance.

De Gutes says she'll meet him there. Oh, I'm not going, her father says. They'll just have a look at her blockages. Instead, of course, they embark on emergency surgery. Her father does show up for 3 of the 9 hours of surgery, but mostly de Gutes sits there alone. He is not there when her mother awakes. Through the vigil, the nurses are curious as to why this married woman's husband is not present. De Gutes realizes that "The simplest answer was the most stunning. He was here, but he left. De Gutes creeps off to the men's department at Nordstrom. So I am standing here alone feeling fat and unattractive and when I look up from the dress shirt with the button-down collar and French cuffs, I see an elegant femme with long strawberry blonde hair.

She is wearing a tight, wool, navy-blue skirt with a kick pleat, a cream-colored blouse silk, I'm sure and a choker of pearls. She is tall and the blue spectator pumps she is wearing make her even more so. On her arm is the butchest woman I have ever seen. She is equally tall and wearing expensive clothes: As they walk by me, the butch reaches over and pats the femme right on her beautifully rounded backside and follows its line which is so apparent against the tight wool.

I have not yet seen lesbians of this ilk This femme looks over her shoulder at me, sees all this on my face, and lets go a delicious peal of laughter. View all 3 comments. Sep 06, Jenny Forrester rated it it was amazing Shelves: Exquisite prose, insight and wisdom and a sharp-minded humor with a heart of gold, de Gutes has it all.

Jan 09, Judith rated it it was amazing.

Wonderful writing - I could use any of the essays in this book in classes for examples of point of view, structure, pacing, use of interesting sentences, humor, turns, list essays, etc. What I appreciate most about this collection is though there are sassy, smart, goodness-I-want-this-person-at-my-dinner-party essays where the speaker knows exactly how to define herself, there are so many instances where the lid flies open on the mystery of life and the speaker asks and doesn't answer unanswerabl Wonderful writing - I could use any of the essays in this book in classes for examples of point of view, structure, pacing, use of interesting sentences, humor, turns, list essays, etc.

What I appreciate most about this collection is though there are sassy, smart, goodness-I-want-this-person-at-my-dinner-party essays where the speaker knows exactly how to define herself, there are so many instances where the lid flies open on the mystery of life and the speaker asks and doesn't answer unanswerable questions. This is not due to any lack of courage on the author's part, but an abundance of humility.

And it's damn refreshing to find that balance in a memoir. Jun 18, Judith Shadford rated it it was amazing. I knew that going in. And we went to grad school together. What was an immediate delight is her skill in shifting points of viewst person, 2nd person yes! I am seduced by her acute and marvelous sense of fashion, coming out to her family, to herself within our culture. She draws me deeper into Brilliant, of course. She draws me deeper into her story: Within the early vignettes, her parents are tangential, their presence is familiar in its universality, until they become central.

Both mother and father wanting, always wanting: I feel the kind of breathless achievement at having read a page novel over the weekend instead of a page collection of little essays that evoke, in me, anyhow, astonishment, covetousness, exhilaration. Jun 17, Heather Weber rated it it was amazing. KCDG is a masterful writer.

Her juxtaposition of irony and humor with the tender and raw realities involved with the decline of aging parents, coming to terms with her gender identity and sexuality, and recovering from the end of a long marriage had me aching with empathy and laughing along with her in the span of a few pages. Holding the ironic, the comedic and the tragic in tension like that is the sort of thing that can be accomplished only by a writer with a tremendous depth of insight on hu KCDG is a masterful writer.

Holding the ironic, the comedic and the tragic in tension like that is the sort of thing that can be accomplished only by a writer with a tremendous depth of insight on human nature. And that, along with breathtakingly precise prose and and a rhythmic beauty to her essays, is what you'll get in Objects--profound self-awareness and others-awareness that, without this being a primary intention of the book, teaches others to do the same work, ask similar questions about origins, relationships and identity. Jul 14, Robert Peate rated it it was amazing. Kate Carroll De Gutes is a role model and inspiration in a bow tie.

The personal is political, and my horizons have been broadened at the same time I have been allowed to see more than ever that we are all human and normal. Kate is a brave woman transforming the mundane into the universal, while giving voice to more than just herself. I was moved to tears by her struggle, by the struggle of all who have faced orientational injustice.

I salute and thank her for rising above the b. Jan 17, Josephine Ensign rated it really liked it. Warm, wryly humorous, deeply human and impeccably written. Having had the pleasure of hearing Kate Carroll de Gutes read several of these essays in various Seattle-area venues, it was rewarding to be able to savor them again as written words on a page of a lovely 'real book.

Jan 28, Brook rated it it was amazing. I loved these short essays and stories- vignettes of a life not very dissimilar from mine, if a few decades before. Would definitely recommend this- one of my favorites from Lez Book Club. Many good, thoughtful, educational and humorous essays I enjoyed the book a lot. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of humor in the book. I enjoyed Kate's creative words very much.

Read this book if you don't have gay friends, or even if you do. I feel like Kate confides in her audience some very important aspects for people to know about gay children coming to terms with their sexuality. I understand much better how this world makes it so difficult for them. There a Many good, thoughtful, educational and humorous essays I enjoyed the book a lot. There are all the usual difficulties, parents come with lots of their own flaws for kids to deal with.

Life is hard, but try being gay. Nov 06, Jennifer rated it liked it. A very readable, kaleidoscope of a memoir. If only the author were as self-aware and insightful as her writing is. From a west coast perspective she may be high-strung, self-absorbed and neurotic, but since I am a New Yorker her angst felt incredibly flimsy and flat.

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This review is perhaps coming out harsher than I really intend, because A very readable, kaleidoscope of a memoir. I think every parent of a child who feels they may not be meant to live their traditional gender role should read this book. I had the good fortune to meet Kate on an 8 hour bus trip followed by her joining my husband and I for dinner, complete strangers to her before that day. I never would have known that she had these struggles and experiences based on the delightfully fun person she is now.

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Dec 31, Amy rated it really liked it. Lists with This Book. Feb 06, skein rated it liked it Shelves: I read this on a trip to Vermont, which is about as far politically and geographically as one can get from my home state without falling into the ocean, or Canada. It was a gloriously sunny day of the sort one can only get at higher latitudes -- the light seems closer, somehow; why would that be?

So I sat on a bench in the sun, gave myself a nice burn, and cried. I also dog-eared every other page this, in a library book. I am a terrible terrible person. Here's where I say that it's a debut nov I read this on a trip to Vermont, which is about as far politically and geographically as one can get from my home state without falling into the ocean, or Canada.

Here's where I say that it's a debut novel and very very good, though a first novel from a very very good author is still a first novel; and here's where I apologize for my rating system, which makes sense to no one but myself and places Pride and Prejudice on par with Objects the latter is better-written ; and here's where I apologize, again, for my inability to do any justice to Weber's writing and -- is scope too pretentious a word for such an unpretentious novel?

This is why it's good, why Weber is good: You created the horror - unwillingly, unwittingly; but now it is here and it is your fault. You will live with this. You have no choice. And you will not forget, and you will do it again. Le Guin called this "equilibrium", capital E, which is a beautiful and unwieldy word for such a deeply nasty, treacherous goblin. This - that creation of horror, through our essential forgetful sloppiness - is wholly selfish.

And even more so, says Weber and I agree is that we can forget about it; we can love; and we call that love more important than the evil we've done. May 23, Marie rated it liked it Shelves: I bought this book for 2 pounds in England, and it's been on my bookshelves for years. I still get books out of the library, of course, but I am doing my best to read some of the ones filling up our study.

I liked this book more than I thought I would--it was very well written. It's the story of an American woman, Harriet, who goes to Geneva on a photography fellowship and visits an o I bought this book for 2 pounds in England, and it's been on my bookshelves for years.

It's the story of an American woman, Harriet, who goes to Geneva on a photography fellowship and visits an old friend. When she arrives, she discovers that said friend Anne is having an illicit affair with a much older man. The book starts out in the form of a rambling letter Harriet is writing to her boyfriend back home, and then it changes format into third person halfway through the book.

Personally, I was much better able to relate to Harriet than to Anne whose motivation to be with a man who treated her shabbily I could not understand at all , but I found it interesting to read about the friendship between two such different women, and how they relate to the men in their lives. View all 3 comments. Jan 17, Ami rated it really liked it. This is a damn impressive debut novel.

As always with Weber, I'm more compelled by the events that happen in current time, as opposed to in flashback, but that is a small complaint. Jul 12, Kristy Dallas Alley rated it liked it.

I liked this book, but it took me a long time to read for some reason. I just wasn't compelled to pick it up every time I had the chance. I think I would have enjoyed it more in my twenties. Mar 18, JodiP rated it did not like it Shelves: I just could not get into the story. I didn't care about the two women and their lives. Nov 14, Sterlingcindysu rated it really liked it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A lot is going on in this short book.

Good character development--I love Harriet's stream of consciousness in writing a journal with jokes, asides, colorful bits. And what happens to the rest of the joke, "a frog walks into a bank"? I'm not sure what emphasis to put on Gay, Harriet's grandmother. Is she just the purveyor of correct habits, or there to show that life goes on through husbands and disappointments? Benedict is too good to be true, but there needs to be some ju A lot is going on in this short book. Benedict is too good to be true, but there needs to be some juxapositioning between all the other no-good deadbeats which is almost ALL the other men.

Miss Trout sure did "swim" upstream for years to get to her happy hunting grounds. So poor Harriet has had quite a life. There was her indecision at her brother Adam's bedside, and lack of control when adults come in and out of her life both physically and mentally. When she has a "situation" with a neighbor's baby, she Takes Action and does well.

Again with her roommate Anne, she wants to Take Action but knows this time she may be butting into matters beyond her. She, herself is happy now, so does she really want to take on others' suffering? Would this be rubbing it into Anne's face? And does Anne see a father figure in Victor, a father who is happier and taking life by the horns instead of just giving up? I'm not real sure what the title means.

There's all the photographic references, but I'm guessing there's more than that. Harriet was in Geneva for I thought a seminar or showing, but no reference is made to that, so I kept expecting something more to be made of her work. I also had some confusion over what decade this was taking place in--too many references to Cary Grant and musicals, yet then faxing and computers were mentioned.

I wasn't expecting that ending for Anne at all. May 12, astried rated it it was ok Shelves: It started great, it started really intimate. Reading Harriet's letter, following her going tangent on her story telling, this was the part I enjoyed most. The ending totally lost me and the last star promised to it. I can't like Harriet even from the start.

I think she's a meddling goody two shoes. From the first page I was thinking if she's Eh From the first page I was thinking if she's one of those unreliable narrator or ugly puppet used by author to prove an opposite point. I was truly missing her voice at the beginning of part 2 and was dissapointed of the change; I couldn't understand why the story hadn't continued just as it was. Then I realized that now is the time of the uncovering of truth, where we will finally get to know the reality of her life. In a way it was so, all the fact was brought out; Yet somehow I felt let down. Her denouement felt so bland.

And how he was potrayed as the perfect man n making their relationship a solid ideal one.. Come on, seeing all the relationships went to the dust all over the book did Weber actually expect us to swallow this? Mar 21, Andria rated it it was ok Shelves: This was more in the 2. The reviews all hailed this novel's wit, and there were allusions to and a complimentary jacket blurb from Iris Murdoch, so I felt like maybe I was missing something by finding the writing, while stylistically solid, to be wasted on a pointless plot and half-formed characters.

Written in three different parts and points of view Part 1: I might be convinced to try some of this author's later work, but I wouldn't recommend this one. Jan 22, Mary rated it really liked it Shelves: I really enjoy this author-she is funny and clever and a good writer. The story begins with letters Harriet is writing to her boyfriend Benedict while she is staying with her friend Anne in Geneva.

The letters are fun and full of sparkling insights, but Anne's affair with Victor is frustrating and ends up bringing the book down. The rest of the story can be a bit soap opera-y and didn't match the early expectations.