IF YOU’VE SPENT much time here, you already know how we TSP sisters feel about the power of memoir, and Mary Gordon’s layered remembrance of her mother is an outstanding example of the genre.
As the title implies, the book is an examination of Gordon’s mother, Anna Gagliano Gordon, from every angle. To her daughter, she was both a glamorous career woman and an object of pity, her body pained and twisted by a childhood bout with polio. We learn about her intense bonds to parish priests, her adoration of high Hollywood movies, her late-life marriage and difficult relationships with her sisters. And, of course, because this is Gordon writing, it is her story, too: how she both differs from and is like her mother; how their closeness becomes torture as her mother ages and declines.
For all of us who struggle with contradiction between the deep attachments and bitter divides that only family seems to produce, this book is provocative and delicious. Enjoy, and be sure to tell your sisters what you think.
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