The Year My Mother Came Back
Alice Eve Cohen. Algonquin, $23.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-61620-319-1
In this finely wrought memoir, Cohen (What I Thought I Knew) handles nearly overwhelming events. Her adopted-at-birth daughter, now 18, finally reconnects with her birth mother. Cohen’s biological daughter, whose conception was a surprise because of Cohen’s diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer and the consequent hormone treatments, has to undergo a difficult leg-lengthening surgery at age eight to correct a birth defect that Cohen feels responsible for causing. Through this prism, Cohen remembers her own mother, Louise, who passed away 30 years prior. Cohen takes readers on a journey through her immediate travails, as well as through her troubled childhood dealing with a mother whose own battle with cancer transformed her emotionally and physically. Cohen’s mother was a trailblazing champion of civil rights, an early feminist who bemoaned the trappings of a stay-at-home motherhood and fought for her intellectual life. Cohen ultimately gets closure with her mother, who gives her advice beyond the grave about how to be a better mother, how to face cancer, and how, ultimately, to be a daughter who finally finds peace with the complex woman who had more of an impact on her life than she ever realized. (Mar.)
Details
Reviewed on: 01/26/2015
Genre: Nonfiction
Compact Disc - 1 pages - 978-1-62231-561-1
Compact Disc - 978-1-6651-5490-1
Compact Disc - 978-1-6651-5488-8
MP3 CD - 978-1-6651-5489-5
Open Ebook - 289 pages - 978-1-61620-431-0
Paperback - 288 pages - 978-1-61620-533-1