Lyrical telling of parent-child love under the burden of mental illness. Makes you laugh and cry in the same sentence. ( )

I really enjoyed the snippets of her Mom's diary and then the memoir of her life juxtaposed. ( )

This is a very good memoir about Bartok's relationship with her mother. Her mother, a gifted pianist, developed schizophrenia as a young woman, and so Bartok and her sister had very difficult childhoods. Her mother's erratic and paranoid behavior was so difficult that both sisters ended up changing their names, so that their mother couldn't find them.
Bartok kept in touch with her mother, who was homeless in Cleveland, Ohio, through intermediaries. Finally, when their mother developed cancer and was on hospice, the sisters reconciled with her.
Quite an interesting and powerful story. ( )

4.8 A striking, beautiful, disturbing memoir about growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Remarkably readable for that complexity of both the events and the emotions. Worth it for subtle repetitions. ( )

A tough read due to the contents but beautifully written from a daughters perspective on a schizophrenic mother. What does a child do when their mother behaves in an erratic and threatening manner all the time. You and your sister deny she's your mother, bolt your bedroom door and run to someone else's house when she gets out of control?? And then for years you do not let her know where you live and your sister has not contact with her. But now she is old, living on the street and dying. ( )