A daughter examines her complicated relationship with a charismatic, narcissistic mother who now lives with alcohol-related dementia.
When Cassie Wolfe brings her mother, Nina, to the Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital to be detoxed, the doctors ask her to write a profile of the patient. But how can she fit Nina into a Word document? The last two years have left Cassie stunned, unable to reconcile the shell of a woman lying in the hospital bed with the force of nature that was her mother.
Cassie's memories of Nina span decades and landscapes, from a farmhouse in Massachusetts to the streets of New York and the mountains of New Mexico. Nina was a charismatic iconoclast—an architect and builder who could wield a circular saw as easily as discuss politics art. But as Cassie comes to realize, Nina's brilliant constructions were only possible when she walled off whole sides of herself. Hiding is not unique to Nina—Cassie knows AA is full of just such intelligent, hilarious, powerful women. And when her critical gaze turns to her own life and how she’s raising her two daughters, she sees her mother's influence everywhere. In the end, Nina's devastating descent threatens to pull the family under, and Cassie's constant action is propelled by grief until she realizes that all that remains is to let it go.
A daughter examines her complicated relationship with a charismatic, narcissistic mother who now lives with alcohol-related dementia.
When Cassie Wolfe brings her mother, Nina, to the Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital to be detoxed, the doctors ask her to write a profile of the patient. But how can she fit Nina into a Word document? The last two years have left Cassie stunned, unable to reconcile the shell of a woman lying in the hospital bed with the force of nature that was her mother.
Cassie's memories of Nina span decades and landscapes, from a farmhouse in Massachusetts to the streets of New York and the mountains of New Mexico. Nina was a charismatic iconoclast—an architect and builder who could wield a circular saw as easily as discuss politics art. But as Cassie comes to realize, Nina's brilliant constructions were only possible when she walled off whole sides of herself. Hiding is not unique to Nina—Cassie knows AA is full of just such intelligent, hilarious, powerful women. And when her critical gaze turns to her own life and how she’s raising her two daughters, she sees her mother's influence everywhere. In the end, Nina's devastating descent threatens to pull the family under, and Cassie's constant action is propelled by grief until she realizes that all that remains is to let it go.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Mar 19, 2024 |
| Specifications | 344 pages | 5.25 in x 8 in |
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Excerpt |
| Written By |
SABRINA REEVES grew up in Boston and New York and currently lives in Montreal. Her artistic practice has primarily been in writing performance texts and plays. She founded the performance company Bluemouth Inc., with whom she’s written and staged over a dozen original works and performed all over the world. In 2018, she completed an MFA in creative writing at Concordia University, where she was awarded the Dean of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Creative Writing. |
| Written By |
|
SABRINA REEVES grew up in Boston and New York and currently lives in Montreal. Her artistic practice has primarily been in writing performance texts and plays. She founded the performance company Bluemouth Inc., with whom she’s written and staged over a dozen original works and performed all over the world. In 2018, she completed an MFA in creative writing at Concordia University, where she was awarded the Dean of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Creative Writing. |
Nina is brilliant and drunk. She’s also a mother, whose children celebrate her gifts and struggle to survive her parenting. Sabrina Reeves’s first novel is as gorgeous, ruthless, and unforgettable as its protagonist.
” —Peter Behrens, author of the Governor General’s Literary Award–winning The Law of DreamsA portrait of childhood and motherhood that turns these concepts on their heads, shining a light over all their gaps and insufficiencies. Sabrina Reeves’s love of her characters is reckless and palpable, propelling the reader forward across every heartrending page.
” —Sean Michaels, Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and author of Do You Remember Being BornThere are never enough accounts of mothers and daughters; the bedside lamentations, the diversions, the lengths women must go to reach—and care—for each other, and very often, finally, just to let go. In Little Crosses, Sabrina Reeves wades into the maelstrom with her heart on the outside, and it’s that vulnerability that sets the pace here, that makes this book so hard to set down. Cassie’s is a compelling journey, one that many of us will recognize intimately, and painfully, as true.
” —Sina Queyras, author of Autobiography of ChildhoodNina Wolfe is a force of nature, a free spirit, and the life of the party—but as her children know, she can also swallow people whole. Her story sucked me in and left me with a deep respect for writer Sabrina Reeves, who clearly understands the push and pull of dealing with a larger-than-life parent in crisis. Little Crosses heralds the arrival of a big talent.
” —Neil Smith, author of JonesA magnetic read. In Little Crosses, when a mother requires critical intervention, her daughter balances the brilliant, neurotic exuberance of her mom’s life with her own, and with the entrenched aggravations of their complex time together. Sabrina Reeves creates a hypnotic character who invigorates a jubilant, intimate, painful, loving, and astonishing novel.
” —Trevor Ferguson, Hugh MacLennan Prize winner and author of The River Burns