Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019

*Most Anticipated Reads of 2019 by Publishers Weekly , BuzzFeed , The Rumpus , Lit Hub , The Week , and Elle.com*

Fifteen brilliant writers explore what we don't talk to our mothers about, and how it affects us, for better or for worse.

As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize what she was actually trying to write: how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. The outpouring of responses gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers.

While some of the writers in this book are estranged from their mothers, others are extremely close. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer's hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn't interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything .

As Filgate writes, "Our mothers are our first homes, and that's why we're always trying to return to them." There's relief in breaking the silence. Acknowledging what we couldn't say for so long is one way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves.

Contributors include Cathi Hanauer, Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Dylan Landis, Bernice L. McFadden, Julianna Baggott, Lynn Steger Strong, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, André Aciman, Sari Botton, Nayomi Munaweera, Brandon Taylor, and Leslie Jamison.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In October 2017, as the #MeToo movement gained momentum, Filgate published an essay on the website Longreads describing her strained relationship with her mother as a result of her stepfather's abuse that her mother never believed happened. This collection takes its title from that essay, which is reprinted here, and presents 14 other pieces by a diverse set of writers, including André Aciman, Alexander Chee, Cathi Hanauer, Leslie Jamison, Carmen Maria Machado, and Bernice L. McFadden. The essays all address the authors' relationships with their mothers in stories to be savored but not necessarily read in one sitting. A lot of the writing is heavy and deals with sexual violence, mental illness, estrangement, and physical and emotional child abuse. One piece even discusses a mother accusing her daughter of a crime she did not commit that sent her to jail. Other essays are powerful treatises on love and friendship between writers and their mothers, all are beautifully composed. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers interested in the complicated topic of mother-child/familial dynamics. [An editor's pick, LJ 2/19, p. 20.]-Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Media, PA © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Filgate, contributing editor at Literary Hub, collects a fascinating set of reflections on what it is like to be a son or daughter. One of this anthology's strengths lies in its diversity, both in the racial and socioeconomic backgrounds represented, and in the experiences depicted-some loving, others abusive. The strongest pieces are the most revealing: in Kiese Laymon's essay about "the harm and abuse I've inflicted on people who loved me," he asks "Why do I... want to lie?"-a question that resounds throughout this book. Nayomi Munaweera offers an attention-grabbing account of growing up in an immigrant household and with a mother with a personality disorder, while Brandon Taylor conveys the shattering pain of verbal and physical abuse. In a sunnier entry, Leslie Jamison explores the magic of having a great mom and describes the spell cast by a parent shaped by hippie-era Berkeley. Despite the title, the contributors find it difficult to talk about what's unsaid, with most discussing what has already been spoken. Nevertheless, the range of stories and styles represented in this collection makes for rich and rewarding reading. Agent: Melissa Flashman, Janklow & Nesbit. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Ask 15 writers to share their most private thoughts about their perhaps most personal relationship, and prepare for fireworks. Filgate opens this lit-fuse collection with her essay on the abusive stepfather who tainted her relationship with her mother. The viral response to that piece, first published in Longreads, and the ultimate relief Filgate felt in writing it led her to gather these pieces from 14 other writers. Kiese Laymon explains why he wrote Heavy, winner of the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal, directly to his mother. Novelist Nayomi Munaweera discloses that her essay, relating the profound effects of her mother's lifelong emotional duress, is the hardest thing she's written yet. André Aciman considers how his mother's deafness shaped her entire life, and made her a master of intimate communication. Seeking a topic that she and her mom don't readily discuss, Leslie Jamison must go back to a time before she was even born, through the autobiographical novel written by her mother's first husband. Sharing a very specific prompt while varying in nearly every other aspect length, tone, style, approach these essays, each one exceptional on its own, encompass both love and writing at their most vulnerable, and could power entire cities with their electricity.--Annie Bostrom Copyright 2019 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Fifteen essayistsmany luminarieswrite unflinchingly about their mothers.From the first page of the introduction, where editor Filgatean MFA student at NYU and contributing editor at Literary Hubnames cooking as a way of staying connected to the mother she doesn't talk to very often, this collection is honest and riveting. Kiese Laymon writes about the difference between loving someone and loving how that someone makes you feel, while Carmen Maria Machado explores how her feelings about the mother from whom she's estranged shape her thoughts about having, or not having, children herself. In her sharp contribution, Lynn Steger Strong considers what she cannot find a way to say about the anger she feels toward her mother. Julianna Baggott describes being her mother's "confessor." Andr Aciman's ruminations about his mother's deafness also serve as odes to language and bodies and communication. Brandon Taylor illuminates the experience of cancer and examines his lack of empathy for his mother, and Leslie Jamison rounds out the collection with a loving piece in which she attempts to "project my admiration back through time to reassure the woman my mom had been, that woman who felt only that she had somehow failed the man who loved her firstthat women who did not know, could not have known, the road ahead." Most of the essays are pointedly literary and lyrical; many include meta-reflections on the nature of truth-telling, and the narrators show themselves thinking and rethinking the claims they hazard and then revise about their mothers. For the most part, the collection avoids clich and sentimentality; equally remarkable, each one of these intimate and gut-wrenching essays reaches beyond itself to forge connections with readers. Other contributors include Alexander Chee, Melissa Febos, and Sari Botton.Moving Mother's Day reading for the fearless and bravethough some readers may want to have their therapist on speed-dial. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.