Bringing her exceptional talent for detail, character, and scene to
bear on the life of her hard-working single mother, a bestselling author
gives us a deeply felt and powerfully moving book about their
relationship.
"A daring and perceptive work of memory, catharsis and literary grace."
--Los Angeles Times
Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, was the
personification of the culture of the mid-century American Catholic
working class. A hard-working single mother--Mary Gordon's father died
when she was still a girl--she managed to hold down a job, dress
smartly, raise her daughter on her own, and worship the beauty in life
with a surprising joie de vivre.
Toward the end of Anna's life, we watch the author care for her mother
in old age, beginning to reclaim from memory the vivid woman who helped
her sail forth into her own life.