Don't Mind Me, I Just Died:  On Time, Tennis, and Unforgiving Mothers (cloth)

Don't Mind Me, I Just Died: On Time, Tennis, and Unforgiving Mothers (cloth) by Caroline Sutton

The essays in this subtle and wide-ranging collection depict the lasting impact of mothers on daughters, the shifting relationships between parents and children over time, the ironies of marital life, and quandaries in the face of decline and death. Sutton brings startling perspectives to the everyday—from painting a room or getting on the wrong subway, to hitting a dazzling backhand or witnessing a lunar eclipse.

She finds meaning in unlikely places. In "The Fly in the Refrigerator," an errant fly leads the author to question intentionality and will, which are so often foiled by the unexpected in life's trajectory. With wit and humor, "Tennis: Fort-da!" spirals from the geometry of well-played points to patterns of human interaction and perception. Sutton finds hints of her father's identity in "Water on Fire" through letters he wrote to her mother from an aircraft carrier that was torpedoed in the South Pacific during World War II. Other stories depict loss— the scattering of her mother's ashes on an ocean beach—and ways that absence induces us to look again at both present and past. Sutton's insights expose the ephemeral nature of the things we gather and the homes we build while conceding our need to reconstruct the past and be cognizant of its fickle ambiguity.

  • ISBN: 978-1-932727-19-7
  • Price: $22.95 (cloth)

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