Exit Interview with My Grandmother

On 76th Between Columbus and Amsterdam, a Ninety-Two Year Old Woman Is Reading Sally Rooney

By: Lily Meyersohn

Narrated by: Lily Meyersohn

Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

Lily Meyersohn’s Exit Interview with My Grandmother is a rumination on young adulthood, through the prism of her relationship with her 92-year-old grandmother. 

At once profoundly personal and far-reaching, Exit Interview with My Grandmother serves as a meditation on the beginning of a young woman’s life and the series of questions that arise from examining love, loss, family, memory, and death. Moving between cities and centuries, Meyersohn probes her family's Jewish history and her grandparents' relationships in part to decipher her own young queer relationships, but also to examine how we ought to behave in the face of a world riddled with uncertainty and doubt. 

Comprising a personal narrative and an intimate, recorded conversation with her grandmother, Meyersohn’s essay confronts what it means for something to begin, what it means for something to end, and what we should hold onto along the way.  

©2019 Lily Meyersohn (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

blaaaaah.

This book was one part conversation with her grandmother, one part her really pissing me off for her misplaced priorities, and eight parts her pining over her girlfriend. I don't recommend it.

I Missed the Grandmother!!

Struggled to finish this one. For a audiobook titled Exit Interview - we hardly ever heard from or about the grandmother!! Seemed like we missed out on a lot simply because the author didn't want to ask the hard questions. Although the authors on her own life musings were wide ranging and interesting, they failed to touch me as profound or meaningful in a larger context other than that of a restless young 20- something. A grandmother's touch might help her get out of her own head - if only she'd let her. Author was an excellent narrator! Would definitely listen to her on another title.

Not as advertised

I expected a book about the author’s grandmother’s life...experiences, advice etc....as indicated by the title....instead, it’s a like a read of the author’s diary...mostly about her lesbian relationship (which I forwarded through) with sprinkles of her grandmother and their family background/identity as Jewish as an ethnicity/culture...not in the religious belief as there is no mention of God or morality...and the author and her grandmother appear to be atheists with no belief in the afterlife, which will be a rude awakening when the time comes. The author seems to struggle with meaning in life, which is understandable as secular person without Jesus/God . The author comes across “disconnected” almost dispassionate in feeling....for the subject matter around her grandparents and other family....but it could just be the writing style.
The author is good at descriptive writing though.
I would have appreciated a better description of the book....I don’t think I would have chosen it if it had. It did give me a glimpse into the mind/experience of people who live without Jesus/God in their daily life. Makes me glad that I do. It’s not a struggle to find meaning and enriches relationships and all aspects of life and provides the assurance of knowing that there is an eternal life to look forward to.

Not what I was expecting

I thought this book was going to be much more about the author interviewing her grandmother than it was, instead I felt it was more about her lesbian love life. For a very short book, I really wanted to know a whole lot more about her grandmother, her grandfather and all her ancestors having left Europe and surviving the Holocaust. Nice her family accepts her sexuality, but I didn’t think all of going into that was needed. Write a different book for that or change the title of this one.

Less about grandma and more about nothing

I thought this would be an interesting story about a much loved grandmother and her life and insights. instead, it's the ramblings of a young twenty something with a lack of direction and a lack of maturity for her age with a few minutes of recordings from her grandmother. I was hoping that perhaps there would be some insight that would help the author gain traction in her life, but the wheels spun too long and I'm giving up.

Title misleading

I thought this was going to be a discussion with her grandmother. Instead it was more, of the author asking her grandmother like three questions, which took up 10% of the book. And the other 90%, the author talking about her life.

A beautiful daughter / granddaughter story

Lily ( Meyersohn ),

I loved your book, Exit Interview with My Grandmother ... It's honest refreshing and for me a walk down memory lane ... I know you are probably thinking I am an "Elderly Grandmother" ... WRONG ... I am a "Elderly GrandFATHER" ... Your book was a pleasure and I had no idea it would be so good!!! Your book helped me have that experience of "FLOW" ... I jotted down several phrases that will always be remembered ... "They are natural allies, grandparents and children ..." "Sophie & Berlin, that's a great name for a novel." "We find ourselves at the same place we began." "Things won't ever be this way again." It isn't immoral to have babies in the era of climate change but it is immoral to have climate change in the era of babies." "Uncharted territory" ... "I had her all my life." "Old people just don't feel things ... they do ... they do ... they just don't show it." "Do not censure what you say, that's all, whatever crosses your mind, as if it were psychoanalysis, you have to say ... or the relationship will die." "There's never enough time." "The only thing that lies before her is doubt itself." George Elliot, "What are we put here on Earth if not to make less trouble for each other or less unhappiness for each other." Your future as an author is limitless!!! Thank-you!

Profound

This was the most moving and prophetic book I've digested for some time. Of course, the grandmother's insights were the gems of the book. And to hear her voice -- an oral history of sorts -- made this a brilliant presentation. I was moved by her description of the value of a long marriage (a lifetime conversation). And fascinated by her description of what it is like to live with a spouse who is suffering from dementia. And I was impressed with her literary acumen.

But, still, I was pleasantly surprised to find the 23-year-old granddaughter to be a masterful presenter as well. Lily Meyersohn's own wisdom shines through, despite little experience in life.

At the start I wanted hear more from the Grandmother, and less of the ruminations of the young author. But as the presentation moved along I came to see that the author was a stand in for every young person who KNOWS she doesn't yet KNOW much about life. Who is struggling to believe in their own value and ideas, yet feels like a weak copy. Lily Meyersohn is not a weak copy. She is someone to watch -- and listen to.

Impressive...

Considering the age of the writer. Very interested in what she will write as she has more and more life happen to her. I find the writing poetic but not flowery, and quite satisfying.

Won't recommend this

There is nothing much about the grandmother's story. Misleading title. Disappointed. I won't recommend this.