PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Martha Baillie is the author of the novels The Search for Heinrich Schlogel, If Clara, and The Incident Report which was nominated for a Giller Prize. With her sister, Christina Baillie, she also wrote Sister Language. She lives in Toronto.
This is a stunning memoir, intense and meticulous in its observations of family life. Baillie subtly interrogates and conveys the devastating mistranslations that take place in childhood, the antagonism and porousness of siblings, and the tragedy of schizophrenia as it unfolds. I couldn't put it down. -- Lisa Appignanesi A meditation on the mystery and wonder of grief and art making and home and memory itself... Baillie's variety of attention, carved out of language, is tenderness, is love... Extraordinary -- Maud Casey, author of City of Incurable Women Exquisite -- Souvankham Thammavongsa, author of How to Pronounce Knife Strange, unsettling, highly evocative, often disturbing. Its brave honesty is amplified by a persistent lyricism; its undercurrent of fear is uplifted by a surprising, resilient hopefulness. It is both a plea for exoneration and an act of exoneration, an authentic meditation on the terrible difficulty of being human -- Andrew Solomon
