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    S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed Him
    S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed Him
    S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed Him
    Ebook184 pages2 hours

    S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed Him

    By Adam Chester

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    And you think your mom is too involved? Meet the mother of all mothers in this “hilarious” memoir (North Shore News).
     
    Adam Chester is the son of a very loving mom, who for almost thirty years has peppered his life with unsolicited advice, news updates, and opinions in the form of thousands of inappropriate, embarrassing, and utterly crazy letters. Here, he presents a selection of her correspondence showing the pathological extremes maternal instincts can take.
     
    Why is a grown woman so frantic that her adult son screw on his windows to keep out killer bees? Is Adam at imminent risk of frostbite should he ever decide to visit San Francisco? And are adult trick-or-treaters really that much of a threat?
     
    With time, perspective, and plenty of therapy, Adam acknowledges and accepts the comedy of it all—and in this book he shares his story of an unforgettable mom who gives “overprotective” a whole new meaning.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateApr 15, 2011
    ISBN9781613121146
    S'Mother: The Story of a Man, His Mom, and the Thousands of Altogether Insane Letters She's Mailed Him
    Author

    Adam Chester

    Adam is a professional composer and singer/songwriter; the official 'Surrogate Elton John.' Adam sits in as Elton John, playing piano and singing while rehearsing Elton's band for various appearances. He is married to a fearless woman. They have two beautiful boys and reside in Los Angeles. Adam's mom lives about twenty minutes away, and since he will not respond to various inappropriate phone messages, she still writes Adam at least four times a month.

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    Reviews for S'Mother

    3/5

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    • 3/5
      Adam Chester's mom is a little crazy. His dad died when he was young, so he's all she's got. When he went away to college she started writing lots of letters...and he saved them all. This book includes actual copies of the letters and newspaper clippings she's sent him over the years. When you first start to read her letters, she just seems like a normal overprotective mom with possibly some boundary issues. But the more you read, you realize this woman is over the top. Among other things, she's paranoid. Her main message seems to be "don't trust ANYONE." The letters get even crazier toward the end of the book. Depending on your perspective, you will find the letters funny, sad, scary, or a combination thereof. But also by the end of the book, you get to know Adam and his mom even better, and you realize that even though she seems crazy, she is coming from a place of love.Recommended for overprotective moms, and children of overprotective moms.(I received this from NetGalley for review.)
    • 5/5
      Hilarious! Reminded me of my own mothers trips into randomness , destination ridiculous.
    • 4/5
      Adam was raised by a single mom who, like many moms, kept her eyes on him at all times. Finally a high school graduate and a freshman at University of Southern California (USC), Adam is breaking the apron strings and moving 2700 miles away from his loving mother. During his years at USC and ever since, Adam has received postcards, letters, and notes from his mother all by snail mail. For whatever reason, Adam kept all those mailings in a box, some unopened, until the day he decided to put them to good use and wrote this book.Most of these letters are funny, some funny as hell. Adam’s mother tries hard to keep more than a modicum of control over Adam’s life through missives of warnings (“Please do not eat sushi!”), to-do’s (“ . . . go buy a new tire . . .”), and specific career advice (“You could send Clive Davis . . . a sample of your music?”), along with an occasional Hanukah Gelt (money). Adam receives admonitions because he does not write enough, call enough, or think of Mom enough. He learns about the dating habits of the previous generation – sometimes in unwarranted detail. Sometimes there is just a quarter, a newspaper clipping, or flight insurance information (“Enclosed find this insurance document in case my plane crashes.”)From Adam’s first year at USC (“I don’t understand why your music professor is giving you a hard time. Do you want me to talk to him?”), to worries over his mother-in-law (“She’s a little nutty herself!”), S’Mother will delight and tickle. This is technically an adult title but any teen moving away for the first time, be it college or a new job, will gain insight into the blight of a suddenly childless mother. Why does mom ask so many questions? Why does she call every Friday when I’m getting ready for a date? Why did she send money, I have a job? S’Mother may be the book to explain the “why” better than any other book. Adam’s mother is definitely in the extreme, yet all parents and especially mothers, hold on forever.Between each letter or postcard Adam tried to explain or understand his mother and sometimes, himself. The funniest section is the aftermath of Adam breaking his hip in an automobile crash. Mom travels across country to take care of him, like most any mother would. Difference? Adam’s mom moves into his shared dorm room at USC. When mom was not nursing her son, cooking for the other guys, or making sure they got off to school each morning, she went on dates. Once Adam got back on his feet and into his classes, mom stuck around. It wasn’t until the Christmas break that Adam could get her back home to Miami – he accompanied her, of course. Freshman year can be a difficult transition in itself, add mom to the mix and . . . well, Adam survived by virtue of the pain medication he needed. This truly delightful book will keep you in stitches, even if you are a mom with a child in college. It is sweet, irreverent at times, and full of love from both mother and son. I highly recommend this title. S’Mother is a one-of-a-kind, just like Adam’s mom.Side note: Who is Adam Chester? He is a singer-songwriter who sits in for Sir Elton John during rehearsals and concert warm-ups. He is a composer and a piano man. Most importantly, he is a husband and the father of two boys, who he tries to shelter from grandma.Note: received from netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, Abrams Books

    Book preview

    S'Mother - Adam Chester

    Eighteen. I was a decent-looking USC college freshman with a badass Cutlass Supreme, my very own upright piano from childhood that I had shipped directly to my dorm, three new roommates, a full schedule of music classes, and a view of the Hollywood sign from my living room window. For a guy who’d never been to sleepaway camp (or to ANY camp for that matter, or allowed to sleep over at a nearby relative’s house, or a friend’s house . . . OK . . . maybe once, but . . .), this was the life!

    The two-bedroom, one-bath dorm was on the seventh floor of an on-campus, fourteen-story building known as Webb Tower. This was the first place I was to form one of my many long-term relationships with a mailbox. This particular one had a satin-brass finish, and was built into a large conglomeration of similar mailboxes located in the lobby. I was the main proprietor of the box known to me as 711. Two of my roommates were from California, so they weren’t far enough away from home to warrant an abundance of mail. My other roommate was a tough guy from Boston who was not a member of any Let’s-Keep-in-Touch Club. So the doggone box was mine.

    The first letter I received from my mother was this postcard:

    September 27, 1981

    Dear Adam—

    Another view from San Francisco—If you go here—

    make sure you bring your winter coat—you’ll need it.—

    gets very cold—

    Love,

    Mom

    A typical motherly warning, you say? Nothing off the deep end? Perhaps . . . but it would have been a wee bit embarrassing if one of my roommates were to have read it. I don’t remember my mother ever even going to San Francisco, but it would stand to reason that the only thing she’d have to tell me about it was its arctic weather and how I might avoid hospitalization from frostbite when visiting.

    Then this came:

    October 3, 1981

    Dear Adam,

    You never have time to talk on the phone. Are you

    meeting any nice girls?

    Make sure you dry your dishes before you put

    them away.

    Love,

    Mom

    What the . . . ? It was strange, but I let it go. For what it’s worth, I hung on to the letter. I never asked my mother what she meant by those words. Perhaps she’d just dropped a dish and had it on her mind when she put the pen to the pad. Maybe she was just kidding around (oh, sure). Or maybe she was convinced that somehow if she didn’t warn me, a wet serving tray would end up doing me in. Then, I received this. Believe me, I’m not leaving anything out. What you see is all there was:

    Tues.

    Adam—

    Don’t have anything to do with your paternal grandmother—

    Love,

    Mom

    And the gloves are off, ladies and gentlemen! While there is a backstory to her demand, to see it on paper like that always makes me shake my head in pure disbelief. You see, at my mother’s insistence, I had not spoken to anyone on my father’s side of the family since the day he died in 1971. I guess she sent me that little reminder letter in case I forgot Adam’s Mom’s RULE NUMBER ONE: Do not have ANYTHING to do with my evil relatives in New Jersey.

    It all started in 1971, when my mother received a letter from her brother-in-law (my uncle) stating that now that his brother (my father) was dead, they (my evil relatives) wanted nothing to do with us (my mother) ever again. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard that in some (normal) families, when a person dies, the mother, brother, and sister-in-law of said person don’t write a letter cutting off the rest of their grieving family. Not so much with this gang.

    To say my mother had a vile relationship with that side of the family is the understatement of all time-and-space continuums. They all passionately loathed each other, if for no other reason than the claim of ownership both sides felt they had over my father. I believe my mother felt my father was HERS, and this pissed my dad’s family off. And vice versa. In the tug-of-war between his family and his wife that he was forced to partake in, my father chose his wife. (Why does this sound so familiar to me?) Because of their rift, all of us first cousins never got to know each other. Oh, well. C’est la vie. Who needs family when you’re growing up? I knew that somewhere down the line, later in life, I’d have to fix the whole damn mess, but first things first. I knew the moment that particular warning letter from my mother arrived that it was my duty, my calling, my obligation, to become the first and only official curator of all things Adam’s Mom. (If for no other reason than to make people feel better about their own mothers.)

    I’m a positive kind of guy. I adapt well to new situations, love meeting new people, and had no issues with having moved so far away from my mother for a single second. (Duh.) Now, imagine my surprise when I received a last will and testament in the mail from her. Was she gravely ill and not telling me about it? Was she just being uncharacteristically responsible? I soon learned it was neither. No, no. Last wills were to become one of the main recurring themes in our correspondence. If it wasn’t the will itself, it would be a list of her various insurance policies, retirement funds, and possessions that made up the boatload I was to inherit, if and when anything ever happened to her. The odd thing is that the list rarely differed from letter to letter. It consisted of the same policies and the same benefit amounts, while offering my mother the same amount of relief (each time) to finally have it all in writing. Yet when that first one came . . . sure, I got a little nervous. I had never seen a will before. What’s wrong? Why the will? I guess every college student should have a copy to pull out from their school locker. Just in case.

    Sunday

    Adam—

    Enclosed is a copy of my latest Will.

    Love,

    Mom

    I decided to look around campus for other forms of life who were receiving wills in the mail. Remember: This was the era before the Internet, cell phones, and home computers. If you wanted to make a friend, you had to get off your feet. Perhaps there was someone else out there in the big bad world with a family (read: mother) like mine! I had been looking for a fraternity to pledge, even though I am NOT your typical frat boy. I hadn’t had my hair cut short since the fifth grade, I hated golf, and I didn’t own one pair of plaid shorts. That’s when I turned to the Sammy house—Sigma Alpha Mu. A like-minded group of fellas whom I immediately related to, with the help of a little upright piano located in their living room. I found my audience. I met a lot of terrific guys who I’m still friends with and a lot of very nice-looking sorority girls who loved to hear me and only me sit and play that piano for hours on end. (Hey, I can dream, can’t

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