The Book of Mother: A Novel
Written by Violaine Huisman
Narrated by Tosca Hopkins
4/5
()
About this audiobook
A New York Times Notable Book
A Library Journal Best Book of 2021
A “marvelous…superbly effective” (The New Yorker) debut novel about a young woman coming of age with a dazzling yet damaged mother who lived and loved in extremes.
Met by rave reviews in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and more, this stunning translation of Violaine Huisman’s “witty, immersive autofiction showcases a Parisian childhood with a charismatic, depressed parent” (Oprah Daily). Beautiful and magnetic, Catherine, a.k.a. “Maman,” smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard, and loves too extravagantly, and her daughter Violaine wouldn’t have it any other way.
But when Maman is hospitalized after a third divorce and a breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mother’s return, once she’s back Maman’s violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherine’s own traumatic childhood and adolescence unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.
With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor, and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mother’s dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to surrender, and finally move on.
Violaine Huisman
Violaine Huisman was born in Paris in 1979 and has lived and worked in New York for twenty years, where she ran the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s literary series and also organized multidisciplinary arts festivals across the city. Originally published by Gallimard under the title Fugitive parce que reine, her debut novel The Book of Mother was awarded multiple literary prizes including the Prix Françoise Sagan and the Prix Marie Claire.
Related to The Book of Mother
Related audiobooks
Briefly, A Delicious Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mothers, Fathers, and Others: New Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nobody Gets Out Alive: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Falconer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chouette Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Very Nice Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Snowflake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mouth to Mouth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nobody, Somebody, Anybody: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ghost Lover: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Animal: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Savage Tongues Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Human Blues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burntcoat: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pessimists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretend I'm Dead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Free Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vacuum in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lightness: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crazy Sorrow Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Pleasures: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lean Your Loneliness Slowly Against Mine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Rooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Second Place: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shmutz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Covenant of Water Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellowface: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Keeper of Lost Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Book of Mother
53 ratings0 reviews