by Delphine de Vigan (2014)
The pain of Lucile, my mother, was part of our childhood and later adult life for my sister and me, but any attempt at an explanation was doomed to failure. Writing about it cannot heal it, but at least it allows me to ask questions and query memory. This is about family memory, where moments of brightness and joy can live side-by-side with grief, wounds and the most hidden of family secrets. "La douleur de Lucile, ma mère, a fait partie de notre enfance et plus tard de notre vie d'adulte, la douleur de Lucile sans doute nous constitue, ma sœur et moi, mais toute tentative d'explication est vouée à l'échec. L'écriture n'y peut rien, tout au plus me permet-elle de poser les questions et d'interroger la mémoire. La famille de Lucile, la nôtre par conséquent, a suscité tout au long de son histoire de nombreux hypothèses et commentaires. Les gens que j'ai croisés au cours de mes recherches parlent de fascination ; je l'ai souvent entendu dire dans mon enfance. Ma famille incarne ce que la joie a de plus bruyant, de plus spectaculaire, l'écho inlassable des morts, et le retentissement du désastre. Aujourd'hui je sais aussi qu'elle illustre, comme tant d'autres familles, le pouvoir de destruction du Verbe, et celui du silence. Le livre, peut-être, ne serait rien d'autre que ça, le récit de cette quête, contiendrait en lui-même sa propre genèse, ses errances narratives, ses tentatives inachevées. Mais il serait cet élan, de moi vers elle, hésitant et inabouti. Dans cette enquête éblouissante au cœur de la mémoire familiale, où les souvenirs les plus lumineux côtoient les secrets les plus enfouis, ce sont toutes nos vies, nos failles et nos propres blessures que Delphine de Vigan déroule avec force"--Amazon.com, viewed January 12, 2012.
Deborah Raney
"The Whitmans are adding grandchildren to their family, but middle daughter, Danae, is childless. Though Danae is ready to consider adoption, her husband will not discuss it. Volunteering at a women's shelter is teaching Danae to live her life with gratitude, but then heart-wrenching events on Thanksgiving weekend threatens turmoil for the entire Whitman clan"--
Larry McMurtry
Aurora is the kind of woman who makes the whole world orbit around her, including a string of devoted suitors. Widowed and overprotective of her daughter, Aurora adapts at her own pace until life sends two enormous challenges her way: Emma’s hasty marriage and subsequent battle with cancer.
Patricia Gaffney
E-Book Extra: Afterword by Patricia Gaffney: "A Woman Is Her Mother"Newly widowed, Carrie is overwhelmed by the guilt of knowing her marriage died long before her husband's fatal heart attack. Struggling to go on for the sake of her teenaged daughter, Ruth, and her overly possessive mother, Dana, Carrie slowly emerges from the sorrow that has embraced her and begins to pull her life together, with help from an unexpected source. Jess, Carrie's first love, re-enters her world and offers her the lifeline that will help her pull herself out of the drowning place she's been in.Inspired with new purpose, and a passion she thought she'd never have again, Carrie must find a way to weave her new life -- and love -- into a family struggling with their own pain and disappointment, who find her newfound happiness a threat to their own precarious balance.Wise, moving, and heartbreakingly real, Circle of Three offers women a deeper understanding of one another, of themselves, and of the perplexing and invigorating magic that is life itself.
Wayne C. Lee
"Although Web Scott had tried to live a good and honest life, the brand of his father was upon him. For Mort Scott had been in prison for ten years for rustling and murder, and everywhere Web went he was pointed out as a jailbird's son. But now Mort, about to die, was protesting his innocence. Furthermore, he was laying the blame on Cole Tillotson, Web's uncle, who owned a big spread in Tomahawk Valley and who had brought Web up when the youngster had been left without a father to raise him. And Web did not know whether to believe the parent he had grown to resent and to hate for ruining his life, or the relative who had taken him in and had taught him to live by the gun in his hand."--Publisher description.