How can you not be pulled into a book that starts, “Maggie is in the midst of a second lazy orgasm when her brother, Ariel, calls to tell her that their mother has died”?
Maggie is thrown by news of her mother’s sudden death. They hadn’t been particularly close in years, as Maggie felt Iris never accepted her sexuality, always seeming to insinuate it was some sort of phase. But she always assumed they’d get past this and work things out.
Still, Maggie’s grief is palpable, and she has trouble navigating her father and brother’s feelings as well. Going through her mother’s papers, she finds envelopes addressed to five different men whose names she doesn’t recognize.
In an effort to escape the stifling environment of a house in mourning, she decides to deliver these letters by hand to the men. Along the way, she discovers a side of her mother she never knew existed, secrets she (and in some instances, Maggie’s father) kept, and she starts to understand things her mother did and said which never had context before.
How well do we truly know our parents? How do we know the things that make them react the way they do to circumstances in their lives? How do our parents’ relationships impact our own relationships?
All My Mother's Lovers was a really well-written and thoughtful book. Narrated by Maggie in the present and Iris at various junctures in her past, it’s a fascinating commentary on how the people we love often hide their true selves from us, and how that affects our interactions with them.
I didn’t get to finish this before the end of June but this was my last Pride Read of the month.
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