Required “reading” for daughters, mothers, grandmothers – and those who love them

Receive four generations of wisdom at the Book Festival event on the afternoon of March 15. In the meantime, enjoy this review of Nobody Will Tell You This But Me.

By Lenore Greenstein, JBF Committee Member

Bess Kalb saved her grandmother Bobby’s voicemails. The wisdom Bess’ grandmother imparts can sometimes be hilarious, and other times, very poignant. When Bobby died at age 90, Bess was not surprised that her voice continued to speak to her. This debut memoir channels the grandmother who regales Bess with stories of four generations of women, and the men who loved them.

In Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, Bobby reminds her granddaughter early in the first section, “You are the only daughter of an only daughter of an only daughter.” But the memoir is less about the mother-daughter relationship than about the kind of relationship that skips a generation. The book is divided into four sections that mirror the life of Bobby, the irrepressible grandmother of author Bess Kalb.

Part One, “My Mother,” tells the story of Bobby’s mother, who traveled alone from Belarus to escape the pogroms. As Bobby puts it, “When she began the story of her escape, I envisioned it so clearly, I thought of it as my story. And when I told it to your mother, she’d think of it as her story. And when she told it to you, you’d think of it as your story. It’s her story, Bessie, but it belongs to us. When she stepped off the boat, we all became possible.”

Part Two, “Your Mother,” is a reflection of the life led by Robin, who is Bobby’s daughter and Bess’ mother. She was unconventional and had a difficult relationship with both her mother and her daughter. She became a hippie in the 1970s, but later changed course and attended medical school. Robin ended up becoming a psychiatrist, helping people mend their family relationships while still working on her own.

Part Three, “Our Life Together,” is a love story between grandmother and granddaughter, a bond that began at Bess’ birth, and continues on after her grandmother’s death.

When Bess is published in Grantland, a sports and pop culture blog, Bobby prints copies for her friends at the club and makes them read it in front of her. When Bess is hired as a writer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Bobby tells her to go to the hairdresser and get a blowout. “The rest,” she assures Bess, “you can handle.”

In the last chapters of the book, Bobby is still giving Bess advice. In Part Four, “After Me,” Bobby reflects on what it’s like to be gone, and yet still be connected to life and to Bess. Even after “One Year and Six Months Dead,” they are still communicating.

Granddaughter: “I miss you.”

Grandmother: “I miss you too, Bessie.”

Bess: “I wish I could hear you.”

Grandmother: “Listen to the voicemails.”

I read this profoundly moving book in only two sittings. The pages were full of humor, tenderness, pathos and sadness. Although short for a memoir, its impact lingers for a long while after the final chapter and can easily bring a tear as the inevitable losses in life occur.

Monday, March 15, 2021, 1 p.m.

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb

Sponsor: Naples Senior Center

Bess Kalb is an Emmy Award-nominated TV writer for the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” television show and a journalist with The New Yorker. She has written for both the Emmy Awards and the Academy Awards. As valedictorian of her graduating class from Brown University, she wowed her professors and classmates with her humorous speech.