What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence

Summary

Fifteen brilliant writers explore how what we don’t talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse.

In the bestselling tradition of The Bitch in the House, What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About is an anthology about the powerful and sometimes painful things that we can’t discuss with the person who is supposed to know us and love us the most.

In the early 2000s, as an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took many years for her to realize what she was actually trying to write about: the fracture this caused in her relationship with her mother. When her essay, “What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About,” was published by Longreads in October of 2017, it went on to become one of the most popular Longreads exclusives of the year, and was shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, Lidia Yuknavitch, and many other writers, some of whom had their own individual codes of silence to be broken.

The outpouring of responses gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers an intimate, therapeutic, and universally resonant look at our relationships with our mothers. As Filgate poignantly writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.”

Contributors:
Cathi Hanauer
Melissa Febos
Alexander Chee
Dylan Landis
Bernice L. McFadden
Julianna Baggott
Lynn Steger Strong
Kiese Laymon
Carmen Maria Machado
André Aciman
Sari Botton
Nayomi Munaweera
Brandon Taylor
Leslie Jamison