Gwendoline Riley

From the prize-winning author of First Love comes an eviscerating account of a toxic mother-daughter bond, grief, and the damage done in the course of a life.

My Phantoms

Stephen Schenkenberg

My mother loved rules. She loved rules in codes in fixed expectations. I want to say — as a dog loves an airborne stick.

When I think of her now, I think that's what I see, or feel, most of all. Her keyed-up look: fixed on something; fas- tened on something. A horrible persistence. A sort of mulish innocence. 

She was mulish, when she wasn't completely biddable, and cach mode always at precisely the wrong time. Like a mimes recalcitrant prop: the door that wouldn't give until it did and sent you sprawling.

My Phantoms quotes

Join the club