Stories from six decades of anger and forgiveness, set in Brooklyn, New York, Andover, Massachusetts, and Western Massachusetts.
“We may think we have read books such as “Muriel and the Grocer’s Daughter” before, about mother/daughter power struggles, but this duet has a force field like none other. Written in alternating monologues, initially there is no let-up in the sense of disparate points of view. Think of waves, relentless, riveting, crashing on competing beaches. Yet, the more the daughter mulls and imagines her mother’s point of view, the deeper their bond becomes. In the end, candor leavened with humor and compassion leads to wisdom and, best of all, a story you can’t put down.”
—Madeleine Blais, author, Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“Lee Wicks’s memoir is a stunner. Here is a beautifully crafted and searingly honest portrayal of the lifelong struggle of a mother who grew up in Brooklyn during the Depression and its aftermath, and a “hippy” daughter determined to do things her way, only to discover over the rough, desert-like journey we call life that she and her mother shared more of the same tough, witty, and loving DNA than either ever suspected. One of the best memoirs I’ve been privileged to read, and one from which we might learn a great deal of who we are and to whom we are bound as long as we breathe.”
—Paul Mariani, poet, biographer, professor emeritus of English at Boston College.
