@crazyjewishmom comes to Chevalier’s Books

While Stars Wars fans were fighting the forces of evil at Landis Labyrinth, a few  hours later author Kate Siegel and her mother Kim Friedman brought their hilarious banter to Chevalier’s Books on Wednesday evening telling the story of Siegel’s book, “Mother, Can You Not?” based on her wildly successful Instagram account @crazyjewishmom.

Disclosure: I was sent to the signing by my two daughters – “OMG!!!” “Crazy Jewish mom, buzzfeed and larchmont!!” “Wow!! Very cool! Mom should totally go ” — I think you get the picture.

They were right.  Siegel’s smart, funny and even sweet re-telling of her mother’s antics charmed everyone in the audience.

Buzzfeed editor-reporter Morgan Shanahan “moderated” the discussion which often turned into a series of one-liners and references from the book thrown out by the audience of fans who all seemed to have crazy jewish moms of one ethnic variety or another.

Shanahan explained she started following Siegel’s Instagram account (which had 11,000 followers at the time) because she has a crazy jewish mother too. Her subsequent story about Siegel on Buzzfeed trended to the top with several million views for three days. Now, Siegel has 811,000 followers on Instragram.

Kim Friedman, Kate’s mom, who worked as a film and television director while Siegel grew up in Los Angeles before she followed her daughter to New York a few years ago, is completely comfortable as the “crazy” mom. She didn’t seem to mind having her antics outed by her daughter nor did she refrain from telling all us that Kate should dump her boy friend and get a job with benefits.  Perhaps because she was so delightfully comfortable, she was also incredibly endearing.  Just happy to do anything, talk to anyone, etc. to help her daughter be successful and who couldn’t relate to that? And who doesn’t want a mom like that?

“Mother, Can You Not?” might be just the perfect Mother’s Day present, it was for me. Thanks girls!