hello mother!
favorite books about mothers and children... appreciating, yearning, complaining, losing, and loving!
Bonjour-Bonjour,
Today a bring you:
read.read.read.
I scanned my shelves, seeking books about mothers and children. I found a slew! Short Stories. Memoirs. Novels. Poems. All about forceful, fraught, fierce, fragile, friendly, fragmented families. Honestly, each book earned a place on my list because I loved it. Do click the links and read about them all.
I know your next book is in this post.
Do you have a favorite book about mothers and families?
read - memoirs:
Losing a mother: THE MERCY PAPERS, by Robin Romm.
”You cannot lose the people that you love when you most need them; this did not happen, could not happen. In order to beat death, you couldn’t admit to being vulnerable to it.”
…
Celebrating a white mother of eleven black children: THE COLOR OF WATER, by James McBride.
“All my siblings, myself included, had some sort of color confusion at one time or another, but Richie dealt with his in a unique way. As a boy he believed he was neither black nor white but rather green like the comic book character The Incredible Hulk.”
Losing a child: BLUE NIGHTS, by Joan Didion.
“What I had not seen, or what I had in fact seen but failed to recognize, were her frantic efforts to avoid abandonment.
How could she have ever imagined that we would abandon her?”
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Reckoning with a difficult mother: MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME, by Arundhati Roy.
“I left my mother not because I did not love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her. Staying would have made that impossible.”
…
Yet, despite it all, still loving your mother: FIERCE ATTACHMENTS, by Vivian Gornick.
“My relationship with my mother is not good, we are locked in a narrow channel of acquaintance. Intense. And binding. There is exhaustion and then there is rage.”
…
Losing a child and becoming a mother: AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION, by Elizabeth McCracken
“Of course he doesn’t erase his older brother’s death. He’s a little baby: we’d never ask him to do such a job. Monkeying in the ways of the dead is for reincarnated llamas, or infant queens, not our child. His job is to be Gus. In this he more than pulls his weight.”
…
Mothers and food and loss: CRYING IN H-MART, by Michell Zaumer.
At another table, there are three generations of Korean women eating three different types of stew: daughter, mother, and grandmother dipping their spoons into one another’s bowls… None of them pay any heed or give a second thought to the concept of personal space.
…
TENDER AT THE BONE, by Ruth Reichl.
In a chapter entitled Queen of Mold, Reichl’s mother says, “Darling, I need you. Get up and come into the kitchen.”
Opportunities to engage in the r.w.e. community:
Mentor Book Group— in which we read memoirs, personal growth books and discuss what we might like to adopt in our own “work-in-progress” lives. THE CREATIVE ACT, A WAY OF BEING, by Rick Rubin, will be our May book, meeting on 31 May at 9a pacific time. Love to have you join us.
If you’d like to discuss books with me and a group of smart and lively readers, the r.w.e. book group selection for May is THIS IS NOT ABOUT US, by Allegra Goodman. We will meet Sunday, 17 May, at 9a pacific time on zoom. Want to join in? The book group is a perk for paid subscribers. I’d love to get to know you better:
Thank you in advance for sharing your love!
read - fiction:
A reluctant Mother who won’t get out of the pool: THE MOST, by Jessica Anthony. The tension and depth of this novella floored me.
“It was the little things, she knew by now, the small repetitions, that made a life. This morning Kathleen slowly drifted from one end of the pool to the other. She rested her back against the coping and lit a cigarette that she did not plan to smoke as she listened to her family walk up the stairs in silence.”
…
Young Mothers, struggling families, secrets, and appetites: SUNSTROKE, by Tessa Hadley.
“Both women see quite clearly that the moment they come into view, their arms full of children and shopping, Kieran is looking for Rachel and that on his face when he sees her there is a moment’s naked flash of feeling: of relief perhaps, or desperation.”
…
Grandmothers who mother and are transformed by a strong new bond: LOVED AND MISSED, by Susie Boyt. I adore this novel so much.
“When you were a baby I sort of kidnapped you. Just couldn’t help myself. You were irresistible. I’d been lonely like you wouldn’t believe. The endless evenings ganging up on me.”
…
A longed for baby finally arrives and the lives of the parents are changed in unexpected and rapturous ways: A BIG STORM KNOCKED IT OVER, by Laurie Colwin, her final novel. Funny, complex, and moving.
“This is not a baby friendly culture,” Hugh said. “But don’t you remember before you entered your breeding years what a nuisance they were? Coming into restaurants and shrieking? Having one sitting behind you at the cinema, yakking or yelling?”
“I don’t think of myself as someone in my breeding years,” Jane Louise said.
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Someone yearns to be a mother. Someone yearns to bask in the affection of a mother. A tender temporary family: FOSTER, by Claire Keegan.
“Where there is a secret,” she says, “there is shame — and shame is something we can do without.”
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Mourning a mother lost at a young age: SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW, by William Maxwell.
“Children tend to derive comfort and support from the totally familiar—an umbrella stand, a glass ashtray backed with brightly colored cigar bands, the fire tongs, anything. With the help of these and other commonplace objects—the help also of the two big elm trees that shaded the house from the heat of the sun, and the trumpet vine by the back door, and the white lilac bush by the dining room window, and the comfortable wicker porch furniture and the porch swing that contributed its creak… creak… to the sound so the summer night— I got from one day to the next.”
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Mothers and daughters ride a familial tide of joy, pride, regret, guilt, and love: SHOUT HER LOVELY NAME, by Natalie Serber.
“Ruby mimeographed REWARD FOR LOST CAT signs and borrowed a stapler from her school. The next afternoon, they walked the neighborhood, not saying much, just walking and stapling. They passed Donald, sweating in Bermuda shorts and a plaid shirt buttoned up to his neck, as he patched the pool in his carport. “Look-ing for the Manx?” The way he asked frightened Nora because his eyes and voice didn’t go together. One gleamed and the other pitied.”
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Mom and daughter on an emotional road trip: ANYWHERE BUT HERE, by Mona Simpson.
“You really think you are the cat’s meow, don’t you,” she said, looking at me and shaking her head. “You think you can just play while I work and work and work. Sure, that’s what mothers are for isn’t it? To slave away so you can have a nice house and clothes and food in the fridge when your friends come over. Sounds pretty good. Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re but you're not going to get away with that anymore. You’re going to have to start pulling your own weight.”
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The monotony of a mother’s happiness is disrupted by a perplexing act of a child: UNLESS, by Carol Shields
“My daughter is living like a vagabond on the streets of Toronto, but even so I had to have four yards of screened bark mulch delivered to the house.”
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The powerful ties and deep misunderstandings between mother and child: AT THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER, by Jamaica Kincaid.
“Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the colored clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun.”
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A funny and fierce mother fully comes alive: MOTHERHOOD MADE A MAN OUT OF ME, by Karen Karbo.
“I am a terrible mother. I love my daughter, love her so much I’m amazed.”
read - an excerpt and a poem:
An excerpt to read right now. Please don’t skip this beautiful piece about the particular knowing and tenderness between a mother and daughter. I adore this passage from Deborah Levy’s book, REAL ESTATE, in which she speaks of caring for her aged and dignified mother during her last days.
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And, a poem from one of my favorite poets, Ellen Bass. “Indigo” begins thusly:
As I’m walking on West Cliff Drive, a man runs
toward me pushing one of those jogging strollers
with shock absorbers so the baby can keep sleeping,
which this baby is. I can just get a glimpse
of its almost translucent eyelids. The father is young,
a jungle of indigo and carnelian tattooed
from knuckle to jaw, leafy vines and blossoms,
saints and symbols. Thick wooden plugs pierce
his lobes and his sunglasses testify
to the radiance haloed around him. I’m so jealous.
As I often am. It’s a kind of obsession.
I want him to have been my child’s father.
I want to have married a man who wanted
to be in a body, who wanted to live in it so much
that he marked it up like a book, underlining,
highlighting, writing in the margins, I was here.
Please do click this link to read the entire poem, an homage to life and motherhood, and complicated truths.
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Thanks for being here with me.
Tell your people you love them, and take care of your skin!
PS:
In case you missed it, here are a couple recent missives:
And, to stay in the loop:
Thank you so much for this great list! Didion is a favorite.
I highly recommend "Shout her lovely name" and that's without the bias of knowing the author! I'm off to my mother's 100th birthday. She was above all a kind woman. On birthday number 90, the neighborhood kids gave her a shoebox full of notes titled "Ninety things we love about Lois" May I someday rise to that standard!