Motherland

I found this memoir to be absolutely impossible to put down. It is soulful, beautifully written, original, witty, and profoundly moving.

This is a fine work, very moving and important. People will respond to it with feelings from their own lives. It is not simple or obvious, but something that the author must have felt very strongly and thought about so much. Any reader will find something important in this book.

Pamela Marin's memoir is beautifully written and is an honest, gripping account of her journey to better understand her mother. The relationship between mother and daughter is so intense and the bond so strong that Marin's search to 'discover' the truth about her mother is both heartbreaking and touching. Her writing is easy to read and beautiful...I would highly recommend this memoir.

This is a moving and well written work. Applause to Pamela Marin; this should be recommended.

Ms. Marin's story recounts the disappearance of her mother from her life when she was 14 years old. A lifelong Baptist, Mildred Marin secluded herself in a Christian Science Retreat 2,000 miles from her home and family because of illness until her subsequent return to Illinois, where she was hospitalized and then died. Pamela Marin didn't know her mother was ill. Her Christian Science, ad-executive father didn't tell her, nor did her older brother. Her closest friend during those trying days after the loss of her mother was the housekeeper. The ad-executive father began dating, the housekeeper lost her job because father went broke and within a couple of years Pamela was living on her own in Chicago, working in bars, taking temp jobs...just trying to get from one day to another. This is a stunningly honest book. The confusion, sadness and depression of those years isn't tempered with much sweetness and light, yet the morass of that time is brightened with the love she finds with her partner and husband and her successes as a journalist. Yet still she struggled with the questions about her mother. Finally, her own recurring dreams about her mother, Mildred, forced her to try to find answers to her questions about not only her mother's life, but her father's coldness and refusal to help her understand why answers weren't forthcoming. I was fascinated with how Pamela Marin finally faced and dealt with her problem - for it was affecting her entire life. She journeyed to the place her mother grew up, talked with people who knew her mother and kept digging and traveling until there was no place left to go. It was a brave, ten year journey and this beautiful prose is the result. If all of the pieces of the puzzle aren't there, it certainly wasn't from lack of trying. If you appreciate gritty honesty and intense emotion and true love expressed with deep sincerety, you'll grab this book from the shelf and after you've read it, you'll think about it over and over again and, finally, buy some for a few good friends.