‘My Mother’s Memoirs, My Father’s Lie, And Other True Stories’ by Russell Banks

My Mother’s Memoirs, My Father’s Lie, And Other True Stories by Russell Banks, 1986

The magic trick:

Turning what seemed amusing into a feeling of deep loneliness

The notion of the narrator debunking the family myths is pretty amusing. Until it is not. The closing scene twists the original premise, so that now mom’s stories aren’t the stuff of chuckles but instead reveal a deep loneliness and longing for human connection.

And that’s quite a trick on Banks’s part.

The selection:

There’s always someone famous in her stories, I thought. Dan Rather, Sonny Tufts, Grace Metalious (though my mother can never remember her name, only the name of the book she wrote). It’s as if she hopes you will love her more easily if she is associated somehow with fame.

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