reading Mary Karr’s memoir The Liars’ Club, which chronicles the author’s experiences growing up in a family struggling with alcoholism but also incorporates wonderful moments of humor and familial warmth. As I read, thoughts from my own childhood began to intrude. Not dark memories but pleasant snippets, mostly about my mother. The memories carried me from my bed and deposited me in a chair at the kitchen table in the little yellow house. Mama was at the stove stirring a huge pot of gumbo. The memory was so vivid I could smell the spices, sausage and shellfish. She was wearing her royal blue muumuu with yellow hibiscuses. She was still young, tall, powerfully built, thick-legged, wide-hipped and busty. I smiled, put my book aside and powered up my laptop. I retrieved the picture Teresa sent me over a year earlier of our mother and her on the Mexican cruise ship. Though I had looked at the picture dozens of times, it struck me for the first time how old and frail my mother looked and how little time she had.
What do You think about The Lost Daughter: A Memoir?
