The Gospel Coalition

Let me begin with a confession. I’ve never (to my knowledge) seen or heard Mika Brzezinski on television. The cover of her book All Things at Once says that she is cohost of MSNBC’s popular Morning Joe show and I have no reason to think the book would lie. But let me be clear that I had never heard her name until I picked up her memoir. I never would have considered reading the book had it not been on the bestseller list. That’s no knock on Brzezinski (a name I have typed once and copied onto my clipboard so I don’t have to keep retyping it) but just a statement of plain fact.

Because the book is not available in Kindle format, I went looking for it in the Biography section of my local bookstore. But I didn’t actually find it until I meandered over to Self-Help. I guess it is meant to be more than a biography but also a book for women who have found themselves in Brzezinski’s shoes, wanting to be a successful mom and wife and career woman. In short, to be All Things at Once.

As memoirs go, this one was quite well-written (and as self-help books go it was probably very well-written). In 230 pages of really big print with wide margins, Brzezinski tells the story of her life, beginning with a childhood spent in and around the nation’s capital and wrapping up with her present-day career as a well-known media personality. Strangely, she passes over everything between childhood and marriage. Her story may be interesting to those who enjoy her show but, honestly, to me it was really not too compelling. If you love Brzezinski, you’ll enjoy reading her book. If not, there’s probably no good reason to put in the time and effort.

As a self-help book, All Things at Once is significantly more interesting. Here Brzezinski seeks to help other women find meaning and pursue excellence in multiple roles at once. She is honest with many of her own failings in this regard, showing that through much of her life she has been prone to focus too heavily on one thing, always at the expense of another. If she has tried to dedicate herself to motherhood, she has not been true to herself and has made a mess of career. If she went to far to the other side, dedicating herself to her career, she neglected her family. It is a tough balance, that.

Though she seeks to say that she has learned to strike a successful balance between family and career, it is difficult, based on the evidence she provides, to believe that she did so well. For example, in the aftermath of 9/11 (granting that it was a particularly excruciating time for the nation) she spent three full weeks away from her girls. If the nation needed her so badly to be reporting from the front lines, surely her girls needed her just as much in a time of such great turmoil.

One thing the book does well is highlighting just how shallow the media really is and, hence, just how shallow we are as consumers of that media. Time and again Brzezinski has to talk about her physical appearance and how an extra few pounds here and there made the difference between success and failure. Beauty is very important in the media, and to a ridiculous extent. Talent and looks both count in the business, but there are far more untalented beauties than there are plain-looking talents.

Through her efforts in self-help, Brzezinski does offer some wise advise, such as having children earlier in life rather than later in life. But to have children and then to pursue a career that exacts such a toll hardly seems fair. I guess her lessons would carry more weight if she had modeled rather than just suggested them. She wants women to be able to choose career and choose family without having to compromise on either. But it is only the very rare person who is able to do both. And not everyone has the great wealth of Brzezinski which allows her to hire a full staff of nannies to cover when she is unable to care for her family. And, of course, many would see the very hiring of a full staff of nannies to be an admission that she simply cannot do both with excellence.

Though I see it so often, I continue to marvel at just how different life looks when it is lived without God as a (or the) reference point. In this book Brzezinski is primarily answerable to herself; she has to be true to herself. She is also obliged to be true to her husband and her children. But God seems to be left out of the equation entirely. Though she is Roman Catholic by faith, never once does she tell us how faith is integral to who she is and how she lives. That void in her life is immediately apparent.

In the end, All Things at Once stands or falls on the reader’s ability to believe that Brzezinski has succeeded at all things at once. I am not persuaded that she has. I would look elsewhere to learn how to successfully balance all of life’s responsibilities.

Verdict: Read it if you’re a big fan of Mika Brzezinski.