Book Review: A Life Made from Scratch
A Life Made from Scratch. Marie Newman, Köehler Books, March 18, 2025, Paperback, 196 pages.
Reviewed by Matthew Schnur
In her new memoir A Life Made from Scratch, Marie Newman lays bare her foibles and triumphs as an advertising executive, congressional representative, and even more revealing as a mother.
Chapter one begins with a gut punch that would make any parent wilt: “Mom, I think I know how to stop the bullying at school. I can get in a horrible car accident and come back as a different person.”
It’s this frank and direct language that carries the rest of the book. Once recovered from that initial emotional hit, the reader can expect the stories to move along at a good pace.
There’s just enough detail to peek as far around the curtain as the author allows. The details of what her child experienced, how they felt, how the parents felt, and what activities the Newman family took up to deal with bullies are illuminating and heartfelt. It’s fraught and yet filled with the hope of a parent fighting for their child and family. The candor and humility with which Newman writes about her experience is welcome and refreshing.
The major themes throughout the book include:
· The recognition that motherhood is activism, and all mothers are advocates for their children and families. Newman gave up a career she loved to focus on advocating against bullying in all forms and for transgender rights via the discrimination her transgender daughter faced. These stories were heart-wrenching and yet animating.
· The realities of being a woman in Congress. The misogyny that Newman faced while running for Congress, being in in Congress, and running for reelection is outrageous. This revealing look at the reality of Congress meaningfully exposes the systematic impediment to, and exclusion of, women in leadership. Newman also recounts in harrowing detail her experience working to certify the vote on January 6, 2021, and the trauma she experienced during and after the event.
· The realities of navigating a career. This is good information for anyone seeking info on “how to adult.”
· That resilience is a key skill to develop. Throughout all Newman’s setbacks, she always needed to learn and move forward. We can all take motivation from lessons she learned from both her professional and personal life.
Which leads to one quibble with the book. Each chapter, filled with excellent, candid stories, is then followed by a section that includes:
· Lesson: Detailing what can be learned from Newman’s experiences.
· How: How to achieve similar positive outcomes or move toward a solution, including the steps involved.
· Takeaways: Practical dos and don’ts to implement if the reader finds themselves in a similar situation.
While handy as a resource, it gave the feeling of reading a textbook more than a memoir. An appendix of resources seems more appropriate and less disruptive to the reader.
Overall, A Life Made from Scratch is an excellent, candid, humor-filled book. It’s written with great heart, openness, and honesty that is unusual in this age of “branding.” A Life Made from Scratch is a great read for anyone seeking to instigate change, navigate change, and bolster their resilience, all while still carrying on with the everyday.
