LIFE WITH LESS OF ME

A woman confronting her mother’s death revisits a lifetime of family dysfunction.

Burmesch frames her memoir around the aftermath of her mother’s 2019 death, beginning with the author and her sister sorting through their parents’ overstuffed home, searching for a ring their controlling father once claimed to have hidden away. From there, the narrative moves through the author’s childhood in Wisconsin, where her alcoholic father, Eddie, oscillated unpredictably between charm and cruelty, per the author. Small humiliations and moments of terror accumulate rapidly: Burmesch recounts abandonment in bars as a child, untreated medical emergencies, physical abuse, constant screaming fights, emotional neglect, and the shame of growing up in filth (“I was the dirty kid, that character Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip”). She describes her mother as chronically ill and emotionally depleted; in the narrative, she emerges as both victim and enabler, someone unable to protect her children yet still capable of tenderness and rare moments of attention. Later chapters follow the author into adulthood as she marries, raises children, battles anxiety and claustrophobia, survives breast cancer and a nearly fatal infection, and gradually begins to identify the long-term effects of childhood trauma. The memoir’s greatest strength lies in its emotional transparency and in Burmesch’s perceptive depiction of how abuse reverberates across generations. Particularly affecting are her reflections on parenting and her eventual effort to forgive her mother without minimizing the damage done. The prose is sharply observed and emotionally articulate, particularly in its vivid rendering of childhood confusion and the lingering psychological effects of abuse. The author’s emotional candidness gives the narrative considerable weight; at times, however, the exhaustive recitation of traumatic incidents becomes repetitive and emotionally flattening—the sheer volume of suffering the author describes can dilute the force of individual moments. Even so, Burmesch’s reflections on parenting, resilience, and forgiveness lend the work an appealing genuineness.

An affecting and skillfully written chronicle of trauma, survival, and generational healing.