The Covenants Among Generations:
We explore the moral territory of love and secrets across generations.
Kate Raphael talks with authors Diana Paul and Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, who both explore the duties that one generation owes to the next and the previous. Diana Paul's award-winning
THINGS UNSAID explores the moral territory of the sandwich generation, who must simultaneously fulfill their obligations to their aging parents and their children reaching adulthood. Jeanne Blasberg's
EDEN spotlights the choices of four generations of women in one family when faced with unplanned pregnancies, and chronicles the consequences of their decisions.
Things Unsaid raises the following questions: Do you ever worry about helping your elderly parents with their expenses at the same time you want to help your own children? Are you uncomfortable having to choose between competing obligations? A tale of family love, dysfunction, and sense of duty over forty years. Jules, her sister, and her brother share the same events yet experience them differently, defining themselves in terms of the family they think they know. Ever-shifting covenants between parents and children reveal mismatches that neither mend nor end. Think: “August: Osage County” meets Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant with a touch of Olive Kitteridge.
Eden is the account of the days leading up to the Fourth of July weekend, as Becca prepares to disclose her secret, and her son and brothers conspire to put the estate on the market, interwoven with the century old history of Becca’s family, of her parents’ beginnings and ascent into affluence, and of her mother’s own secret struggles in the grand home her father named “Eden”.
Click here to listen to the entire show. 59:50 min
Also on today's show:
Cherrie Moraga
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