On Becoming a Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery

The birth of a child can affect its family ``as a baleful disease,'' asserts Freudian psychoanalyst Bond ( Who Killed Virginia Woolf ), a mother and a grandmother. Here she writes in a diary format to confide last night's dreams and today's worries--that she will ``lose'' her daughter after the baby's birth; that she fears competition from the child's other, richer grandparents. Having closely followed (and described) the growth of her daughter Janet's embryo, and fantasized about her first grandchild-to-be, Bond then realizes she'll have to ``mourn'' before she will be able to love the real child, and dolefully reflects that the child--Rachel Alana--``brings her that much closer to death.'' It's refreshing to listen in on such candidly inparted mixed feelings. (Sept.)