A Mother's Kisses

The premise sounded so good. Joseph does not get into either of the two colleges to which he applied. In steps his mother Meg, who will move heaven and earth to get her boy into a college. Hilarity ensues as we see the relationship between a Jewish teen and his mom. I made it over a third of the way through this book and had to stop. Life is too short.This was originally written in 1964 and applying to college is much different now. But that is not the problem. I kept making comparisons to Portnoy's Complaint and this novel does not come close. I found the book amusing but not funny. I felt like I was reading a farce. And that is the problem. Meg is so over the top. The rest of the characters are minor players in comparison. As I read, I was thinking that this would make a good movie or play. I would enjoy it more in that format. Obviously, other reviewers disagree and Mr. Friedman went on to have a long successful career with books and films. To quote that sage Randy Jackson, "for me, for you Dawg, it wasn't that good."

Kind of slow reading!

Hilarious and quirky- an old favorite; so strenuously read and reread that I had to get this new one!

Worst book I've evertriedto read.

I'm a little dismayed to discover (writing this in October 2015) that only five people have commented on this classic of New York Jewish humor -- and one of them is a sourpuss who didn't even like it. God knows the book deserves more recognition than that. Ostensibly the story concerns a somewhat hapless Brooklyn boy who finds himself going off to college in Kansas with his larger-than-life mother in tow, and I seem to recall that, when the book came out in 1964, one review was titled "Heaven in a Hammock-Sized Bra" and another "Oedipus Schmoedipus." But it's more than a humorous book about a clinging Jewish mother, the familiar figure of so many old jokes, and what little plot the novel has isn't even particularly important; what makes the book unique, I think, is the prose. In fact, the book is in many ways an experiment in language. Quite simply, Friedman writes like no one else; from his first novel, "Stern," through all his other books, he's concocted a comic style all his own. But it's in "Kisses" that you'll find that style displayed in its fullest, most extreme form. You can open the book anywhere -- okay, I can, at any rate -- and find something to laugh at and whole paragraphs to savor. I don't have the time, energy, or ability to analyze all the quirks and oddities of this style (if some academic hasn't done so already, someone certainly will), but it remains, for me, a source of amazement.

This is a one joke novel stretched across 300 pages. While the main character, Joseph, does develop it is on the last page and we have to put up with many repetitive, predictable comic situations to get there. The term 'Smother Love' could easily have come into existence from this novel. Joseph's mother Meg is a powerful personality who co-opts everyone near her. The novel details Joseph's attempts to break away from her and her difficulty in letting go. He fights being a mama's boy all his life. While he despises her actions he comes to realize that he does love her. The reader becomes aware of the depth of feeling each has in this possessive relationship. All sorts of Freudian undertones are present though they may sometime be a bit too obvious. It reads like a comedian writing a psychological textbook.This book may have been a liberating influence in that it opened the way (along with Roth's Portnoy's Complaint) to the popularization of ethnic humor which is today's pervasive style. That would give it a place in literary history. But "A Mother's Kisses" has ironically been swallowed up by all the great comedy that it helped to make acceptable.

Brilliant. And yes, horrifying in its way. Friedman and Roth are the two greatest satirists of Jewish family life. But not a book for the hidebound or squeamish.

This book is hilarious!! I really enjoyed the relationship the Mother and Son had. I wonder if that's because I see myself with my son in the story. I recommend this book to anyone who want to laugh out loud.