Margaret TrudeauKirja-arvosteluja

Spring 2020;

First Audible Original of the year that if I could trade back it would have gone back int the space of the first twenty minutes. I did still finish it, because it only had an extra hour after that, but I did not find myself enjoying, or laughing at any of it. It's nice to have some context on the Candian Prime Minister's mother in her own words, but I have no urge to pursue reading anything else she's written/played in/spoke at.

Mental Health Advocacy as Stand-up Stage Show
Review of the Audible Original audiobook (March 5, 2020)

Once I was wearing very high, very fabulous heels when I met the Queen of England on one of her visits to Canada. I was standing on the tarmac when she got off the plane and we shook hands and I went down into a curtsy and I started wobbling a little bit, and oh-oh, I was down and it suddenly became crystal clear that I was not getting up, and without a flicker of expression on her face the Queen strengthened her arm and she pulled me up to my feet. Her grip was iron. I might still be there today if she hadn't lent me her strength. And she never stopped smiling the whole time. - Margaret Trudeau in Certain Woman of an Age

I particularly liked the above anecdote as it was entirely new to me and because it displays very well both Margaret Trudeau's good-spirited self-deprecatory humour and Queen Elizabeth II's solid quiet strength when under public scrutiny. I enjoyed this 73 minute stage performance which consists of Trudeau's wide range of public and private anecdotes which she delivers in an uplifting tale of resilience and survival. Trudeau has been an advocate for mental health issues since publically revealing her bipolar diagnosis in 2006.

Certain Woman of an Age is one of the free Audible Originals for Audible members in March 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.

Trivia and Link
You can read an interview with Margaret Trudeau that was concurrent with her New York staging of the show in September 2019 at Margaret Trudeau has the last laugh in Certain Woman of an Age.

Margaret Trudeau's previous book "Changing my mind," was a bestseller; this one may not be because it talks specifically about and to one group of people and that is those in their third age. This is a down-to-earth account of her own and her friends' experiences as Seniors. She has talked to experts in the fields and gives good pointers that will be of use to other seniors and their families. The fact that she was a First Lady of Canada may not add credibility to the views but certainly makes for interesting reading. She quotes widely from various sources such as "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." Her words such as, "It wasn't the stuff itself that held me prisoner . It was the unhealthy attachment that I'd cultivated to the stuff," that are likely to resonate with me for a long long time. A book well worth reading.

Margaret Trudeau is not known for living a cautious life. She blazed onto the national stage in 1971 as the ravishing 22-year-old bride of the 51-year-old Canadian Prime Minister. Their unlikely union, which produced three sons, ended in 1977 amid lurid headlines that Pierre Trudeau's erratic wife had gone off to photograph The Rolling Stones. In her 1979 autobiography, she fills in the details of her encounters with The Rolling Stones and other celebrities, her "long tunnel of darkness" experienced during her marriage and her affair with an unnamed man, later identified as senator Edward Kennedy.

I really enjoyed this book; this was the third time that I have read it and I will be keeping it on my bookshelf to read again some time. I give Beyond Reason an A+! and have put Margaret Trudeau's two other books, Consequences and Changing my Mind on my Wish List.

First line:
~ "There's something different about Margie," my parents would sometimes say to others as they tried to fathom my behaviour as a child ~

I have just finished Changing My Mind written by Margaret Trudeau, a memoir and a look at her lifetime struggles with depression and mania. And, I gotta say it, I loved it.

OK, it may not be the best written book around but I lived this woman's history. I don't mean I was bi-polar myself but rather that, as a Canadian woman who is just 4 years younger than Margaret, I remember all of the things that she describes in her book. All of the things that the public was privy to, of course. I did not know what went on behind closed doors.

I was in love with Pierre Elliot Trudeau and had a poster of him on the back of my bedroom door. No movies stars for me! Trudeau mania took me over and I was in awe of him and when he married Margaret I was thrilled that he married someone so young and vibrant.

It makes me very sad to think of the difficulties that she had throughout her life. That she did not kill herself in one of her deep depressions is a miracle.
The support that she has received from her family and friends is a testimony to the significance of caring and compassion in the face of immense difficulty. I know it is not easy to support a family member who is mentally ill.

Good for you Margaret, to bare your soul and confess your deepest darkest secrets in order to raise awareness of the devastation of this disease.

I liked this book. It was interesting because I remember all the events that were happening. Margaret was quite honest and candid about her emotions and gave us a glimpse of political life from "a non politicalperspective." You also get an education about mental health.

Four (long) chapters in, and I am really enjoying this book.½