The Book of Mother

'Unfurls memories, facts and family myths . . . poignant, terribly alive . . . the grit Huisman has in retelling her story, both as a young girl and as a writer, is as beautiful as it is brave' Le Monde'Violaine Huisman summons her late mother's voice in order to speak with and through and for her. The result is a charged portrait of a vibrant and destructive woman as imagined by the daughter who believed it was her job to save her. The prose has the unmistakable urgency and authority of love, producing an homage without idealisation, an elegy without false consolation. The Book of Mother is at once an act of radical identification and a way of letting go' Ben Lerner