From the opening paragraphs of this poignant memoir, one wonders: What could spur a mother to leave her marriage, home and family--including this little girl beaming from the cover? And how did that child remember the moment? "I don't hear the sound of the car engine starting up, but I watch as my mom backs up and drives away in her baby-blue Dodge Dart." Melissa Cistaro was three, and in Pieces of My Mother she reflects on the 35 years between that day and the week in 2009 she spends by her mother's deathbed, seeking one answer above all others: Is she destined to fail as a mother, too?
In short chapters with a then-and-now format, Pieces of My Mother doesn't answer the "why," but Cistaro shares memories as well as a promising conclusion. "My mom didn't pass a 'leaving gene' on to me," she writes near the end, after she's discovered a cache of writing in her mother's filing cabinet: "Letters Never Sent & Thought Dabbles." So carefully pieced together are the stories of Melissa and her brothers growing up, the insights from her mother's witty and revealing writings and Cistaro's interpretation of it all, that the to-and-fro feels seamless. She remembers specifics of her coming of age in their California farmhouse, her mother's sporadic visits, her dad's efforts as a single parent. During her mother's last week, the writings offer comfort. "In her letters, I feel her full presence for the first time--the beautiful, complex, and full human being she was." Then, Cistaro returned home to her own waiting family. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco