- ISBN13: 9781601640031
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Compelling and heartrending, this personal memoir chronicles the author’s decision not to put her mother, who has Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, in “one of those homes” and relays the far-reaching consequences this choice has on her entire family. Detailing the challenges of reversing roles and learning to mother one’s own mother, this refreshing and entertaining autobiography will help those struggling with their own decisions on elder care in the home. It t… More >>
Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir
Grab a tall glass of sweet tea and head for the porch swing, honey. This is Southern writing at its most pleasurable. Ms. O’Dell writes with gutsy clarity and best-friend familiarity, and the result is an unforgettable story.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is well written and made me cry a little as well as laugh a little. This author held nothing back. Any caregiver, especially a daughter will read this one again and again.
Rating: 5 / 5
The adjectives in the subtitle—A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir–reek of sales and promotion, and put me off for six months as the book sat on my Alzheimer’s shelf unread. One idle evening I finally picked it up–and found that in fact, the book was both humorous and heartbreaking.
Occasionally humorous, I should say. Because underneath Carol O’Dell’s lively delivery are some brutal scenes about her mother: a minister, a woman of God, a demanding and racially-prejudiced virago who is nevertheless the author’s adoptive mother, and therefore loved.
The book is composed of scenes, one tumbling after another, not always chronological. One day Novelene DeVault tells her daughter, “I know you’d never put me in a nursing home.” And no, Carol O’Dell doesn’t want to do that, for when still a child she was made to swear that she would never do so. But now her mother adds, “I was smart. I got you so you could take care of me in my old age.”
There are lines in the book that stopped me dead. It happened as well when I read, “I’m remembering the times she’d lose her temper when I was a child, slapping me across the face.”
What a mother. Yet O’Dell is strong enough as a writer to make us care for her regardless. Novelene is a difficult Alzheimer’s patient, sliding miserably toward death–but she’s suffering herself, even more than the family taking care of her. “I’m so lost,” she tells her daughter one day, a sorrow and softness coming over her. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel lost.”
O’Dell has given us a good idea of what it’s like, for both patient and caretaker.
Rating: 4 / 5
Carol O’Dell’s memoir is heartfelt and touching. I laughed with her,and
I cried with her as she lived through the heartwrenching days of her
mother’s Alzheimers.
I found it inspiring that Carol continued to live her life, write, and seek creative outlets as she took care of her mother.
Rating: 5 / 5
Take a look at the mother-daughter relationship as it’s changed over the last three generations. Any woman will love this book.
Rating: 5 / 5