Mothers of Sparta : a memoir in pieces

Title:

Memoir in pieces

Author:

Davies, Dawn (Dawn S.), author.

Publication Information:

New York : Flatiron Books, 2018.

Edition:

First edition.

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

pages cm

Contents:

Night swim 1 -- Three places 5 -- Keeping the faith 20 -- Games i play 43 -- Pie 57 -- Fear of falling 69 -- Field manual-divorce and 79 -- Remarriage: suburban ops -- Men i would have slept with 103 -- Kicking the snakes 118 -- Views of a secret 135 -- Foster dog 150 -- Soccer mom 163 -- The dress 173 -- King of the world 196 -- Mothers of Sparta 217 -- Animals 245.

Summary:

""Mothers of Sparta is a superbly written book, at times gently poetic, at times devastating. I was spellbound from start to finish." -Tim O'Brien "Beautiful and painful all at once. A heartbreakingly honest book that I couldn't put down." - Jenny Lawson, #1 NYT bestselling author "In Mothers of Sparta, Dawn Davies writes like an avenging angel. Her stories are poetic, moving, provocative, and bracingly honest as she trains her lucid gaze on some of life's deepest complexities: In the face of terror, betrayal, and impending loss, how do we love? And what does that love cost us? I've never read a book quite like this one, shot through with the light of an extraordinary talent and spirit." -- Dani Shapiro, author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage -- Provided by publisher.

Personal Subject:

Davies, Dawn (Dawn S.)

Davies, Dawn (Dawn S.)-Family.

Subject Term:

Mothers of autistic children -- United States -- Biography.

Sjogren's syndrome -- Patients -- Biography.

Women authors, American -- 21st century -- Biography.

ISBN:

9781250133700

Document ID:

SD_ILS:3774841

Availability:

Library	Call Number	Format	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Quincy Thomas Crane Library	818.603 DAVI	BOOK	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable
Searching... Weymouth Tufts Library	818 DAV 2018	BOOK	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

"Davies' collection of essays soars.... It's a memoir that locates the profound within the ordinary." -- Entertainment Weekly

If you're looking for a typical parenting book, this is not it. This is not a treatise on how to be a mother.

This is a book about a young girl who moves to a new town every couple of years; a misfit teenager who finds solace in a local music scene; an adrift twenty-something who drops out of college to pursue her dream of making cheesecake on a stick a successful business franchise (ah, the ideals of youth). Alone in a new city, she summons her inner strength as she holds the hand of a dying stranger. Davies is a woman who finds humor in difficult pregnancies and post-partum depression (after reading "Pie" you might never eat Thanksgiving dessert the same way). She is a divorcee who unexpectedly finds second love. She is a happily married suburban wife who nevertheless makes a mental list of all the men she would have slept with. And she is a parent who finds herself tested in ways she could never imagine. In stories that cut to the quick, Davies explores passion, loss, illness, pain, and joy, told from her singular, gimlet-eyed, hilarious perspective.

Mothers of Sparta is not a blow-by-blow of Davies' life but rather an examination of the exquisite and often painful moments of a life, the moments we look back on and say, That one, that one mattered . Straddling the fence between humor and, well...not humor, Davies has written a book about what it's like to try to carve a place for oneself in the world, no matter how unyielding the rock can be.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

This powerful debut collection of essays follows Davies from an unsettled childhood (her parents relocated often and divorced when she was 13) to a fulfilling life as a writer, wife, and mother. A number of these essays were previously published in literary journals; combined here, they portray a sensitive yet fierce woman who battles anxiety and rises from the despair of a failed marriage to find happiness with a second husband in a blended family (three kids from hers, two from his previous marriage). The opening piece, "Night Swim," sparkles with vivid descriptions of Davies's two young, carefree daughters swimming, even as Davies imagines the complications of life that they will face as they get older. "Keeping the Faith," in which Davies details an accident she once witnessed, is startling, tragic, and ultimately redemptive. The strongest piece is the title essay, "Mothers of Sparta," in which Davies tells of the struggles she encountered raising her son, who is autistic and sociopathic. Not all of the pieces are equally powerful: an essay on men she "would have" slept with seems both quirky and misplaced (Ben Carson makes the cut, as does Hermann Rorschach), but the author's observations on parenting are spot-on (once you have kids you "must tiptoe through the rest of your life"). Whether perceptively exploring joy or anguish, Davis digs deeply. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Davies' first book is magnetic attraction in memoir form: it will pull readers in with stories that are funny, insightful, and bordering on farce while also pushing them away with darker pieces about loss, mental illness, and an immense amount of physical pain. Davies uses her oodles of talent to remind readers that human beings are never just one thing, and in her essays, we see a whole life revealed. She is not only a college dropout, a child of divorce, a divorcée herself, a mother of three (one of whom is a son with autism who might also be a sociopath), a postpartum depressive, a sufferer of an autoimmune disease but all those things and more. These snippets do not follow Davies' life chronologically but, rather, give readers an opportunity to see the moments of her life that shaped who she is, and changed her. Her writing jumps from the page as Davies bares her soul, holding nothing back. Readers will laugh and cry, probably at the same time.--Spanner, Alison Copyright 2017 Booklist

Night Swim	p. 1
Three Places	p. 5
Keeping The Faith	p. 20
Games I Play	p. 43
Pie	p. 57
Fear Of Falling	p. 69
Field Manual-Divorce and Remarriage: Suburban Ops	p. 79
Men I Would Have Slept With	p. 103
Kicking The Snakes	p. 118
Two Views of a Secret	p. 135
Foster Dog	p. 150
Soccer Mom	p. 163
The Dress	p. 173
King Of The World	p. 196
Mothers of Sparta	p. 217
Four Animals	p. 245
Acknowledgments	p. 261

Sharon Public Library

Availability:

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Table of Contents