To get a feeling for the memoir Who Do You Think You Are? you need only to imagine a vicious, violent, argument where those words are hurled at another person to wound them deeply. In this story, a chain smoking mother uses the question as a deliberate attempt to slash out at her daughter, Alyse, whom the mother fears is loved more deeply by her husband, and is intelligent enough to become somebody.
The story begins with three daughters sorting through their mother’s unkempt possessions after she has been laid to rest. More than any other possession, the eldest daughter sneaks away with a small padlocked, chest-like box which her mother forbade her to touch while she was still alive. “You can have it when I’m dead. In fact, it will be my present to you.” Although Alyse takes the box, she refuses to open it now that her mother has passed on.
From its very first pages, this tale is filled with the hatred Alyse’s now deceased mother harbored for her throughout 
most of her eldest daughter’s life. It also describes the growing mutual loathing Alyse bore toward her mother. I’m not quite sure I understood all the reasons why the mother singled out her eldest daughter for a life of physical and psychological pain, while the two younger daughters seemed to be treated less harshly.
Alyse grew up in this dysfunctional Jewish family where angered shouting, cursing, and ugly words of revulsion toward one another spewed from both parent's mouths. Their violent arguing was part of every day life, along with chain smoking. When Alyse’s father was home, he seemed to favor her, yet he rarely protected his eldest daughter from her mother’s barrage of degrading, insulting abuse. Alyse often wondered, why?
Her father was away from home quite often: days, a week, several weeks. When he did come home, he and his wife seemed to exhaust their sexual needs, then just as quickly they’d begin their fights and rip one another’s ego to shreds. It made little difference that their children or neighbors, for that matter, heard the couples’ screaming and ranting.
Article comments
1 - Anne Smith
This is nothing new, except so many people are afraid to admit the fact that those who supposely gave us LIFE,can be so evil. Only after 53 years of pure evil, was I able to confront the woman that treated me worst than someone would treat, I can't even compare this to anything that would make sense. To me this woman was evil, but I'm sure there are alot of little girls that was treated in this same matter, but at the time, I thought I was the only child in the WORLD, that could possible be treated this way. I say to help get free, don't wait until she dies, let her know face to face as I did. I never felt freer