GOODBYE TO MOTHER

Name: GOODBYE TO MOTHER
Author: Milind M. Joshi
ISBN: 978-1477623589

by Milind M. Joshi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2012

An uncompromising stance and occasionally heavy-handed writing drain some of the intensity from a difficult, doubt-riddled...

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A heartfelt, somewhat moralistic tale of love, loss and difficult decisions.

In his debut novel, Joshi offers a semiautobiographical exploration of an elderly mother’s disappearance into advanced dementia and her son’s struggle to do what’s best for her. Though the ethical gray areas of end-of-life care are rife with potential, Joshi painstakingly makes his opinions too clear for real narrative tension to build, beginning with an unnecessary foreword that includes the leading, synoptic question: “Should human beings in the later stages of dementia be forced to stay alive, connected to machines, when they have no quality of life, or should they be allowed to die with dignity?” The true action of the book begins when narrator Michael Johnson, the youngest of three siblings, learns his mother, Linda, has died—though it’s quickly revealed that Michael had “known it was coming because [he] was the catalyst for her death.” The first few chapters follow the days immediately after, as Michael, sister Maria and brother Mark make funeral arrangements and try to come to terms with their loss. Joshi does some of his best writing here, with specific, evocative details: Michael’s confusion about the death certificate’s bureaucratic significance; his misguided impulse to reprimand the children in the family for playing at the funeral; the adult siblings reminiscing about their mother, trading anecdotes that seem, on the surface, entirely unimportant. The greater portion of the book is devoted to flashbacks tracing the course of Linda’s cognitive deterioration from her first symptoms through her time living with Michael and his family to Michael’s decision to move her to a nursing home. In a moment that feels slightly sexist at the book’s climax, Michael and sensible Mark are unable to convince the “emotional” Maria that it’s in their mother’s best interest to remove the feeding tubes that keep their mother alive in body only.

An uncompromising stance and occasionally heavy-handed writing drain some of the intensity from a difficult, doubt-riddled situation.

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2012

ISBN: 978-1477623589

Page Count: 200

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS

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THINK YOU'LL BE HAPPY

MOVING THROUGH GRIEF WITH GRIT, GRACE, AND GRATITUDE

by Nicole Avant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2023

Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.

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Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.

“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”

Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023

ISBN: 9780063304413

Page Count: 288

Publisher: HarperOne

Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023

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THE MINOTAUR AT CALLE LANZA

by Zito Madu ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024

An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.

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An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.

In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.

An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.