Tag Archives: family relationships

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy

27 Monday Oct 2025

Posted by in Biography, memoir

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

The author of the God of Small Things (2008) reveals her complicated relationship with her mother and surviving a destitute childhood. written as beautifully as her masterpiece with remarkable wit and humor.

“Booker Prize–winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy recounts a life of poverty and upheaval, defiance and triumph in an emotionally raw memoir, centered on her complicated relationship with her mother…Her candid memoir revives both an extraordinary woman and the tangled complexities of filial love. An intimate, stirring chronicle.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Roy turns inward to reflect on a complicated relationship with her late mother, herself an activist, whose barbed love of Roy and her brother could by turns sustain and devastate.”—NPR.org

“This book pulses with compassion and moral outrage…Ms. Roy acknowledges that her difficult mother shaped the free-spirited, headstrong, risk-taking writer she became…It’s clear from this memoir that while Ms. Roy has lost her chief adversary, she hasn’t lost her fire.”—The Wall Street Journal

“The prizewinning novelist’s unsparing memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, captures the eventful life and times of her mother, a driven educator and imperfect inspiration.”—The New York Times Book Review

Find this book

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

04 Saturday Nov 2023

Posted by in Biography, Non-fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

This is a story of legacy. One rough cotton bag, called “Ashley’s Sack,” is embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love. In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother, Rose, gave her this sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love.  It was passed down through generations. 

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER: PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, Lawrence W. Levine Award, Darlene Clark Hine Award, Cundill History Prize, John Kelly Memorial Prize, Massachusetts Book Award

“[A] brilliant and compassionate account.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Through [Miles’s] interpretation, the humble things in the sack take on ever-greater meaning, its very survival seems magical, and Rose’s gift starts to feel momentous in scale.”—Rebecca Onion, Slate 

Find this book large print

House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild  

22 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by in England, Fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

For more than 700 years, the vast, rambling Trelawney Castle in Cornwall–turrets, follies, a room for every day of the year, four miles of corridors and 500,000 acres–was the magnificent and grand “three dimensional calling card” of the Earls of Trelawney. By 2008, it is in a complete state of ruin due to the dulled ambition and the financial ineptitude of the twenty-four earls, two world wars, the Wall Street crash, and inheritance taxes. (from the publisher) Four women dominate the story and discover what really keeps a family together.  An utterly delightful and refreshing read.

“Rothschild is a witty, stylish storyteller and her overall message feels timely.”—Lucy Atkins, The Sunday Times

“A real page turner . . . sparklingly acerbic social satire . . . . Funny and absorbing, House of Trelawney is the perfect antidote to a grey, Scottish winter’s day.”—John Badenhorst, The Courier & Advertiser

“Nothing is left out in this madcap . . .  novel, which parodies British aristocracy on one hand and the social-climbing world of new money on the other. There are odd, unlikely romances, a suicide, and babies born out of wedlock . . . Ms. Rothschild is an intelligent writer and an elegant prose stylist. The first female chair of the National Gallery, she describes her characters’ physical characteristics with the eye of someone who’s spent a lifetime looking carefully at paintings . . . Britain, that “sceptered isle,” is a shadow of its former self. But one thing the British haven’t lost is their sense of humor, and Ms. Rothschild provides a large dose of it in this quirky satire.” —Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

Find this book audio cd’s

The Awkward Age by Francesca Segal

03 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in Fiction, Humor

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

A widowed mother and divorced father navigate the tricky process of combining families when they move in together with their teenage children. The novel takes place in London (with a brief visit to Boston!), and is a thoughtful social comedy.

“Prize-winning author Segal offers no easy answers in this compassionate novel that surprises until the very end.” —Library Journal (starred review)\

“A very smart, soulful, compelling, elegantly written domestic novel about a wedged-together family, and what can go wrong when teenage children decide they have minds (and hormones) of their own.” —Nick Hornby for The Guardian

“A smart and droll domestic drama reminiscent of the work of those two magical Lauries, Laurie Colwin and Lorrie Moore.” —Fresh Air, NPR

Find this book           audio cd’s

Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away: a memoir by Alice Anderson

10 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Biography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

This woman’s story of her ordeal to escape her abusive, mentally ill husband knocked me over. She is amazing.

“Like blowtorching through silk, Alice Anderson’s alchemy is to turn the shattering pain of her life into poetry. Heartbreaking, terrifying, and shattering, Anderson’s powerful fight for her kids and her own safety becomes a story of breathtaking redemption and yes, beauty.” -Caroline Leavitt, bestselling author of Cruel Beautiful World

 “Anderson is a gifted writer who vividly describes both settings and emotions. Her powerful story gives voice and hope to women caught in similarly terrible conditions.” –Booklist (starred review)

Find this book

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

25 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by in Fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

9780307742216_p0_v1_s118x184

Led by matriarch Kathleen, a charismatic, cruel, and complicated woman now in her 80s, the Kelleher family has spent decades of summers at their Maine summer property. Maine alternates chapters between four women in the Irish Catholic family as they converge at the summer house and confront each other. While the book’s title is Maine, there are also many references to Boston history and locations. Maine is a good book to take on your own summer vacation, with a little more substance than the average beach book.

“I have never stayed at this cottage in Maine, or any cottage in Maine, but no matter: I now feel I know what it’s like being in a family that comes to the same place summer after summer, unpacking their familiar longings, slights, shorthand conversation, and ways of being together. J. Courtney Sullivan’s Maine is evocative, funny, close-quartered, and highly appealing.” —Meg Wolitzer, author of The Uncoupling

“Ah, family. Isn’t it satisfying to leave your own briefly behind to drop in on another—and see how thoroughly they bungle it all up? This is the pleasure of Maine, J. Courtney Sullivan’s second novel, which delves into the secrets and simmering emotions of one dysfunctional family over the course of a single summer month. . . . The dialogue sizzles as the tension between the women’s love and anger toward one another tightens. . . . You don’t want the novel to end.” —Lily King, The New York Times Book Review

Find this book               large print               audio cd

My Father’s Wives by Mike Greenberg

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by in Fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

9780062325860_p0_v4_s114x166 A light and engaging “romance novel” or possibly “chick lit” written by one of the very male co-hosts of ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” sports talk-radio show.  Greenberg’s main character, Jonathan Sweetwater, who is bothered by his lack of a relationship with his late father and distraught by his own troubled marriage decides to track down and interview his father’s six wives including his own mother in hopes of finding answers to the questions about his past.

“Turns out Greenberg knows a lot more than sports. He knows about men–the holes we dig ourselves into and the mess we make trying to pull ourselves out.” (Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You)
On the surface, My Father’s Wives appears to be an examination of relationships. Fathers and sons. Husbands and wives. It is that for sure. But it’s also so much more…Fully realized characters, deft pacing and spot-on dialogue.” (Associated Press)
“Greenberg imbues his second novel with an autobiographical sense of purpose and undeniable honesty . . . A highly enjoyable walk through Jonathan’s foggy past, tumultuous present, and imagined future. Fans of Joshua Henkin and Emma Straub will enjoy Greenberg’s wry, unflinching domestic fiction.” (Booklist)

Find this book         audio cd’s