Michele Filgate

ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 *Most Anticipated Reads of 2019 by Publishers Weekly, BuzzFeed, The Rumpus, Lit Hub, The Week, and Elle.com* Fifteen brilliant writers explore what we don’t talk to our mothers about, and how it affects us, for better or for worse. As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize what she was actually trying to write: how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. The outpouring of responses gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers. While some of the writers in this book are estranged from their mothers, others are extremely close. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything. As Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” There’s relief in breaking the silence. Acknowledging what we couldn’t say for so long is one way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves. Contributors include 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, and Leslie Jamison.

Fifteen Writers Break the Silence

What My Mother and I Don't Talk About

Shelby Doherty

tiff <3

Our mothers are our first homes, and that's why we're always trying to return to them. 

The dread I felt did not rise from my thoughts but from my gut, from some corporeal logic that had kept meticulous track of every mistake before this one. That believed there was a finite number of times one could break someone's heart before it hardened to you. 

I don't know how it feels to create a body with your own. Maybe I never will. I remember, though, how it felt to be a daughter of a daughter, the distance between our bodies first none, then some.

It is so painful to be loved sometimes. Intolerable, even. I had to refuse her.

But wasnt my mother also my beloved, my captor? Wasn’t it against her arms that I fought most viciously? Like the Spartan bride, my heart would have broken if she had truly let me go. A daughter is wedded to her mother first. 

Lies make fools of the people we love. It's a careful equation, protecting them at the cost of your betrayal. Like mortgaging the house again to pay for the car. I was also, always, protecting myself. There were things I would no longer be able to believe if I had to say them aloud. 

All of my violences might be seen this way: a descent, a rise, a sowing. If we sow them, every sacrifice can become a harvest.

My memories of him are still another color from the rest, as if they were all lived in another dimension. 

Like my ancestors, I believe that stories can save us. Our stories are our greatest currency. What one person is willing to share with another is a test of intimacy, a gift that's given.

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