"Hell Is Other Parents: And Other Tales of Maternal Combustion" by Deborah Copaken Kogan

How is it that no one had co-opted the title “Hell Is Other Parents” before? When Sartre said “Hell is other people,” he must have had at least one snippy playground mom in mind (so what if he didn’t have rug rats; there’s always a snippy playground mom at parks, even in Paris, waiting to give anyone the slightest bit imperfect her gimlet eye).

In her essay collection “Hell Is other Parents: And Other Tales of Maternal Combustion,” author (“Shutterbabe,” about her years as a photojournalist in and out of war zones) and photojournalist Deborah Copaken Kogan takes on the modern mating universe with all its progeny, messiness, and mistakes. Kogan and her husband Paul have three children, who at the time of her book’s publication were 13, 11, and 2 (toddler Leo, we are told, was a mistake; perhaps this published admission will help him avoid therapy sessions wondering if he was). She is not a new mother suddenly offended by that snippy playground mom; she’s a veteran of the sandbox wars, in which one mom’s ability to screech that her son has “never heard the word cookie!” no longer fazes her.

On finishing all of the essays, the “Prologue: King of the Mountain” resonates the most. Basically, a snippy playground dad wants Kogan to bring her unusually small then-two-year-old daughter down from the top of a high and potentially dangerous rock. The also small (in stature) Kogan refuses, and concludes by saying “Yes, she might lose her footing; she might even fall. But I’d much rather that she learn how to right herself than keep her from climbing to the top of her beloved rock, up there so, so high, the only place in her world where she’s the biggest thing on the horizon.” She is not going to let anyone else’s fears, expectations, or disapproval deprive her children of their views from the top.

Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for the reader, Kogan faces many a crevasse on the way to the top of her own big, high rock: The middle-school mother who unwittingly reveals the real source of her attack on Kogan’s daughter. The teenaged mother sharing Kogan’s hospital room who has a foul mouth and control of the remote. The Hollywood types who don’t understand why a young working actor (Kogan’s eldest son, Jacob) just has a mother, and not a manager. In these pieces, Kogan reveals the ability to move quickly from big ideas (child safety) to small details (a poopy diaper covered in mud) that made her memoir such a hit.

One essay, “Screwing in the Marital Bed,” is a wonderful example of that kind of personal essay editors now avoid because it’s easy to read and understand: A Thing (in this case, the Kogans’ marital bed) works as Metaphor (the whole marriage could fall apart if it is not maintained). Kogan’s piece is especially lovely as an example, because while it’s a joy to read, it’s easy enough to see that it must have been very difficult to write. Note to editors: Just because readers like something doesn’t mean it’s bad, or that they’re dumb.

A few of the essays placed later in the book seem woefully out of place given such strong family material. A piece about meeting up with Harvard roommates years after graduation contains some excellent observations about class differences and the surprises of how we grow into ourselves, but it never fully meshes into a finished essay – there’s too much going on, and it might have worked better as two or even three related pieces. Another is about Kogan in Paris attempting to reach former lovers, and realizing that time has made older and not necessarily wise men of them all; it has a wonderful nostalgie de la boue tone that is entirely at odds with the more immediate, messy, equally wonderful tone of the more recent essays.

However, “Hell Is Other Parents” deserves a place on any breeder’s bookshelf, because the pieces about raising not just children but a family – creating a communal unit despite vagaries of income, the stresses of city life, and yes – the disdain of other parents – are unlike any you’ll read anywhere else. Kogan writes with the surefooted aim she uses behind the camera: Point, click, truth.