photo courtesy of Amazon.com
In my opinion this is one of the best misery memoirs I have read. Personally I preferred it to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes which also falls into this category of memoir. On Hearing of my Mother’s death six years after it happened, written by Lori Schafer, tells of her life living with a woman who was psychotically delusional at a time when Lori was a sixteen year old still in school. Her understated prose makes the work even more powerful. The reason I preferred this to Frank McCourt’s first memoir was because I found this terrifyingly real and had no doubt as to the veracity of the tale that Lori was telling whereas I found McCourt to be an unreliable narrator and I have to admit I may be the only person in the world that struggled to finish the book but I found it became boring. (This is my personal opinion and McCourt’s memoir is widely acclaimed).
There are parts of the narrative that Lori tells through a character Gloria and another Lila. This is not the first memoir I have read that has used this technique for dealing with a past that is still too painful to narrate in first person but by using third person it is possible to put some distance between the narrating ‘I’ and the character. I also particularly like in this narrative Lori’s level of insight and reflection. Towards the end she includes an essay that was written for the “I am subject” project entitled On writing my memoir. I have often written in pieces I have written about memoir of the various ‘I’ characters that one encounters in memoir and that a main purpose of memoir is the formation of identity. This essay of Lori’s touches on both these aspects beautifully.
Lori’s writing is in the form of short glimpses of a life which build a tension that binds them all together and not totally breaking when Lori finally does escape from her mother. She wrote when she saw the obituary six years after her mother’s death,
I did feel something.
It wasn’t much. A catch in my throat. A Heaviness in my chest. A handful of tears that threatened to fall , and then sank back behind my eyes like raindrops on a mud-drenched field in spring.
Would I recommend this book: absolutely yes particularly if you enjoy memoir, live with mental illness or are interested in learning what it is like to grow up living with an adult that is incapable of caring for you in a normal fashion.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 
Thank you for the review. I also did not like the whole of McCourt’s book, though his recollections of their appallingly-poor living conditions were morbidly fascinating. I felt that The Glass Castle was much better.
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I know of Glass Castle Chelsea but couldn’t bring myself to read another misery memoir but I have it on my shelf and will give it a go. Thanks for giving it a heads up.
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Definitely hard to read when you KNOW it’s a misery memoir. 🙂 At least (Spoiler Warning) no sweet little siblings die, unlike Angela’s Ashes.
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Seems to be much conflict between mother and daughter. Might take courage to read.
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Unlike McCourt where the grim misery of his life was clearly written in this book it was quite understated but I felt it was more powerful because of that and yet it was not a book that took courage to read. For me anyway.
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I read both of McCourt’s books (both very realistic), but haven’t heard of this ‘misery tale’. I’ll keep it in mind for my book club. Great review, Irene!
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The kindle version comes with book club questions. I doubt that it is a very well known memoir but I found it engrossing and from my knowledge of mental illness, very believable.
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It’s a great read isn’t it. I read it maybe 3 years ago and felt every awful step with Lori.
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Yes you can’t put it down when you start. This was the second time I read it. I was talking memoir with someone and I was asked a memoir I’d recommend and I thought of this one straight away and then had to read it again myself. Just as good second time through.
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