“My Mother and Me: A Memoir”

Thomas Hauser

Admission Press, 156 pages

Eleanor “Ellie” Nordlinger Hauser smiles at us from the cover of “My Mother and Me.” It’s a warm and inviting smile, not one that fails to “reach the eyes,” as Stephen King describes those of villains. Ellie had much to laugh and cry about in her long life, and now readers can join her for the ride.

Author Thomas Hauser told me in our History Author Show interview that the New York Times used the photograph to announce his mother’s engagement at 19. She’d just dropped out of Wellesley — bullied by antisemitic classmates — and landed a job at the New Yorker. A journalist there, Brendan Gill, pinned the photo on the office bulletin board.

Mr. Hauser, a writer with credits that include the previous incarnation of the Sun, planned to tell his mother’s story for years with that picture in mind. Readers, he says, tell him their reaction to it is, “Wow, I want to open this book and read about this person.”

The judgment may sound self-serving, but “My Mother and Me” is, in part, the story of raising a son free of such Machiavellian traits. Consider “the Sara Lee Banana Cake Incident.” A chubby kid, Mr. Hauser recounts sneaking dessert and, despite conclusive evidence of his crime, lying about it.

The snacking didn’t bother Ellie; the lie did. Her disappointment sticks with Mr. Hauser at 78. He calls it “really a good lesson for me as an adolescent about telling the truth.” It’s a simple rule, but those are the sort that, if not firmly planted in youth, erode over time.

Ellie was interested in learning about everyone she met, whether it was Barbara Streisand, E.B. White, Lillian Ross, or a bag lady. When the legendary boxing champion, Muhammad Ali, chose Mr. Hauser as his official biographer — the author points visitors to his bed where the champ took a nap — Ellie sought an audience.

Some children might fear their parents embarrassing them. What resulted instead is a moment so sweet, it would cheat readers to summarize it here. Knowing Mr. Hauser’s book would introduce her to more people after her death, she again spared him worry. “I want you to be honest,” she said. “Don’t make me out to be a saint.”

Without that honesty, “My Mother and Me” might have been a boring hagiography. Ellie would have none of it. “You should put in the things I did wrong, too,” she said, “and the affairs were part of our marriage. You can write about them too. It wouldn’t be much of a book if you left them out.”

Mr. Hauser’s father, Simon Hauser, suffered bouts of depression and strayed into infidelity. An anecdote testifies to the state of their union. “Once, when Mom felt them drifting apart,” Mr. Hauser writes, “she asked if he loved her. Dad’s answer was an irritated, ‘Of course I love you.’”

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.” Ellie rekindled her relationship with her high school boyfriend, Bernard “Buddy” Nossiter. The Hausers divorced, but in an inspiring act of reconciliation and forgiveness, Ellie chose to care for Simon through his fatal bout with cancer.

“My mother is somebody who people will like to get to know,” Mr. Hauser said, “like they would a character on their favorite TV show. There are also different themes that run through the book that people can identify with,” such as learning to see parents and children as “individuals with a life apart from their relationship with you.”

Ellie found love three times in her life. “She defined herself,” Mr. Hauser said, “in large measure by the men that she was with first” which was “particularly true of women of her era.” Only after the last, Alan Raphael, passed away did she begin “to define herself more by who she was, and that was a very important step in her journey through life.”

Mr. Hauser calls “My Mother and Me” his “last gift to my mother.” It’s a legacy one she’d be proud for us to enjoy — and why not? With her kindness, generosity of spirit, and intelligence, Ellie Hauser spent almost a century living a story well worth reading.