The Mother Knot: A Memoir
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List Price: $9.95
Our Price: $9.95
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780812971507
ISBN: 0812971507
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 96
Publication Date: 2005-07-12
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: 2005-07-12
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Editorial Reviews:
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In this dark gem of a book by the author of The Kiss, a complex mother-daughter relationship precipitates a journey through depression to greater understanding, acceptance, freedom, and love,.
Spare and unflinching, The Mother Knot is Kathryn Harrison’s courageous exploration of her painful feelings about her mother, and of her depression and recovery. Writer, wife, mother of three, Kathryn Harrison finds herself, at age forty-one, wrestling with a black, untamable force that seems to have the power to undermine her sanity and her safety, a darkness that is tied to her relationship with her own mother, dead for many years but no less a haunting presence. Shaken by a family emergency that reveals the fragility of her current happiness, Harrison falls prey to despair and anxiety she believed she’d overcome long before. A relapse of anorexia becomes the tangible reminder of a youth spent trying to achieve the perfection she had hoped would win her mother’s love, and forces her to confront, understand, and ultimately cast out—in startling physical form—the demons within herself. Powerful, insightful, unforgettable, by “a writer of extraordinary gifts” (Tobias Wolff), Kathryn Harrison’s The Mother Knot is a knockout.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Comment: I had such a hard time finishing this very short memoir. It was very short but packed with lots of reflections. I had read "The Kiss" a memoir also written by Kathryn Harrison and thought it was powerful so I thought this one would be equally as good--or better but no. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. My mind kept wandering to other books I have--that I would much rather be reading. :(
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mother-Daughter Relationship Issues Must Read
Comment: Kathryn Harrison is the author of another memoir, The Kiss; a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago; a collection of essays, Seeking Rapture; and several novels including The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water. In The Mother Knot, Harrison's memoir reflects on the mother-daughter relationship that consumed her life.
In her acknowledgements (which she chose to place at the end of the book rather than the beginning), Harrison writes, "Though my mother didn't prepare me for marriage or motherhood or the job of living, she did give me a muse. My love for her preceded and has outlasted the rage. Because her purpose was to elude she continues to fascinate. She provides what a writer requires, an eternally empty vessel into which endless characters and plots, and all the longing they represent, can be poured."
Not unlike myself, or many women I know, Harrison's relationship with her mother consists of a series of incongruous emotions--love and hate, pride and despair, admiration and shame, but most of all misunderstanding. From these emotions, Harrison shares with her reader the struggle to finally set herself free from a painful past so that she can move into the present and future.
Struggling with anorexia and depression, Harrison relates a childhood spent in search of her mother's approval and love... a quest that seemed to be in vain. At the age of forty-one, Harrison finally is able to come to terms with the hold her long dead mother continues to have on her. She takes positive steps to regain her life and to find a way to live peacefully with the memories of her mother.
This poignant memoir is a must read for anyone who struggles with mother-daughter relationship issues of their own. To see the tenacious grasp Harrison's mother managed to hold on her even after her death and to see the depths to which Harrison had to sink before she could move forward is to witness a transformation. To understand the struggle is to begin to work through one's own demons.
by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Customer Rating:
Summary: Impressive...
Comment: Kathryn Harrison achieves quite a bit in "The Mother Knot" -- tying together breast feeding, maternal guilt, anorexia, and grief over a parent's negligence. I was drawn in from the first line and finished the book without getting up once (it's only 82 pages.) I hadn't read Harrison before but certainly will again. Her style is poetic and spare. She's brutally honest too... she has led a difficult life and spares no one, including herself. I look forward to her other books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Revelation/Validation
Comment: For reasons I cannot understand, I seem to be among the minority who viewed Kathryn Harrison's "The Kiss" as a restrained and remarkable memoir. I was not side-tracked by what many apparently perceived as sensationalist writing...on the contrary, I found Harrison's account of her experiences to be a lean, intelligent, and heartfelt account of an unspeakably difficult passage...furthermore, I can say honestly that among the more compelling aspects of this piece to be her recollections of her relationship with her mother; I have been haunted ever since by those images. As such, I jumped at the opportunity to read "The Mother Knot." I must admit, when the book arrived, I was disappointed to note it's slender profile; little did I know that I would spend the night that followed in lonely sorrow, sobbing, as I processed my own relationship with my mother, who finally passed away this past September...let NO ONE DEPRIVE THIS AUTHOR HER VOICE.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not very interesting
Comment: I picked up this book because of my interest in Anorexia and the author has had to live with this horrible disease.
Although I feel for the author, I just could not get into this book at all.
I am getting a little tired of reading books written by mothers who only seem to have an identity when it comes to their kids. Its obvious that the author is a smart, creative woman, yet, she came across as whiny and self-indulgent.
The fact that she stopped breastfeeding, which in turn made her loose her complete identity was painful and frustrating to read. I wanted to scream at her that there is more to life than just being someone's mother.
I realize that this was but a symptom of what is really going on for her, but still.... the whole thing just grew tiresome.
As for the anorexia, the author makes it sound as though compared to no longer breastfeeding, the anorexia was just a little bit of a problem with food.
The one thing I did feel was her struggle with her mother and the self-loathing it left with her. Obviously there is a huge relationship between her mother and her feelings as a mother, but this book does not have one ounce of humour - it really could have used a little.
Thank goodness the book was so slim.
Not a recommended read.
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