Elissa Altman and Dani Shapiro in Conversation - Motherland

Authors Elissa Altman and Dani Shapiro will be in conversation on Saturday, October 5th at 4pm at The Hickory Stick Bookshop, celebrating the release of Altman’s new memoir, Motherland (Ballantine Books, $27). A signing will follow.

 

How can a mother and daughter who love (but don’t always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy? 

After surviving a traumatic childhood in nineteen-seventies New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the unthinkable: Rita, whose days are spent as a flâneur, traversing Manhattan from the Clinique counters at Bergdorf to Bloomingdale’s and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter.

Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth. To sustain their fragile mother-daughter bond, Elissa must navigate the turbulent waters of their shared lives, the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, the tentacles of narcissism, and the mutual, frenetic obsession that has defined their relationship.

Motherland is a story that touches every home and every life, mapping the ferocity of maternal love, moral obligation, the choices women make about motherhood, and the possibility of healing. Filled with tenderness, wry irreverence, and unforgettable characters, it is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again.

“Rarely has a mother-daughter relationship been excavated with such honesty. Elissa Altman is a beautiful, big-hearted writer who mines her most central subject: her gorgeous, tempestuous, difficult mother, and the terrain of their shared life. The result is a testament to the power of love and family.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance

“Elissa Altman’s Motherland traces the history of a particularly complicated relationship. Wise, evocative, and rich in insight, this compassionate and beautiful memoir is ultimately an act of love.”—Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl

“I’m reading this book right now and loving it!”—Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild

“A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different kinds of love between women.”—O: The Oprah Magazine (“2019’s Best LGBTQ Books”)

 

Elissa Altman is the critically acclaimed author of Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking and the James Beard Award–winning blog of the same name and Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw. Her work has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The New York Times, Tin House, The Rumpus, Dame Magazine, LitHub, Saveur, and The Washington Post, where her column, “Feeding My Mother,” ran for a year. Her work has been anthologized in Best Food Writing six times. A finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, Altman has taught the craft of memoir at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Loft Literary Center, 1440 Multiversity, and Ireland’s Literature and Larder program, and has appeared live on stage at TEDx and The Public, on Heritage Radio, and widely on NPR. She lives in Connecticut with her family.

Dani Shapiro is the author of the memoirs Inheritance, Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Shapiro is also the host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets. She lives with her family in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

 

This event is free and open to the public.  If you are unable to attend this event, you may reserve a signed copy of Motherland by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525. For further information about this event please visit www.hickorystickbookshop.com or email books@hickorystickbookshop.com

Event date: 
Saturday, October 5, 2019 - 4:00pm
Event address: 
2 Green Hill Road
Washington Depot, CT 06794
Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing By Elissa Altman Cover Image
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9780399181580
Published: Ballantine Books - August 6th, 2019

Event Photo: