Motherland
A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing
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Narrated by:
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Elissa Altman
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By:
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Elissa Altman
About this listen
"I’m reading this book right now and loving it!" (Cheryl Strayed, number one New York Times best-selling author of Wild)
How can a mother and daughter who love (but don’t always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy?
"Vibrating with emotion, this deeply honest account strikes a chord." (People)
"A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different kinds of love between women." (O: The Oprah Magazine)
After surviving a traumatic childhood in 1970s New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly 20 years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the unthinkable: Rita, whose days are spent as a flâneur, traversing Manhattan from the Clinique counters at Bergdorf to Bloomingdale’s and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter.
Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth. To sustain their fragile mother-daughter bond, Elissa must navigate the turbulent waters of their shared lives, the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, the tentacles of narcissism, and the mutual, frenetic obsession that has defined their relationship.
Motherland is a story that touches every home and every life, mapping the ferocity of maternal love, moral obligation, the choices women make about motherhood, and the possibility of healing. Filled with tenderness, wry irreverence, and unforgettable characters, it is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again.
Praise for Motherland
"Rarely has a mother-daughter relationship been excavated with such honesty. Elissa Altman is a beautiful, big-hearted writer who mines her most central subject: her gorgeous, tempestuous, difficult mother, and the terrain of their shared life. The result is a testament to the power of love and family." (Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance)
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Critic reviews
"A bold, unapologetic look at the most sensitive of relationships, Motherland questions the unhealthy choices we make for love while conducting an unrelenting dissection of one fraught mother-daughter relationship." (Shelf Awareness starred review)
"True to the trajectory of Altman’s literary career thus far, Motherland offers something completely new not only to her own oeuvre, but also to the world of queer literature writ large.... Altman’s gorgeous new memoir makes clear...that many of us ‘want to know,’ that we ‘want to understand,’ but that we have been born into families or circumstances in which secrets and appearances and silences are held close to chest. Motherland lyrically, quietly, but relentlessly seeks out these secrets, trying to know, trying to understand." (Lambda Literary)
"This is the stuff memoirs are made of. Filled with tenderness, irreverence, and unforgettable characters, Motherland is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again." (Read It Forward)
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Excellent
- By Kathryn Bradley on 03-04-23
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The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
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Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
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No One Knows Us Here
- A Novel
- By: Rebecca Kelley
- Narrated by: Merritt Hicks
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosemary Rabourne is already struggling to pay the bills when her recently orphaned half sister, Wendy, shows up at her door. Rosemary will try anything to provide for the traumatized teenager—including offering her services as a high-end escort. Leo Glass is the billionaire CEO of a revolutionary social app. He wants the “girlfriend experience”—someone contractually obligated to love him—and he thinks he’s found the perfect match in Rosemary.
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Good but not uplifting story
- By Kim on 08-02-23
By: Rebecca Kelley
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Up from Orchard Street
- By: Eleanor Widmer
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Three generations of Roths live together in a crowded tenement flat. Long-widowed Manya is the family's head and its heart. But Manya is no soft touch, except, perhaps, where her granddaughter Elka is concerned. Precocious Elka is her closest companion and confidante. Through Elka's eyes we come to know the fascinating characters who move in and out of the Roths' lives.
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Tenement Life From a Child's Point of View
- By Sara on 08-10-14
By: Eleanor Widmer
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Family Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Though Diane Randall’s jewelry business is a great success, her marriage is not, and she finds herself growing lonely as her children near adulthood. Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter Julia is falling dangerously in love, and Diane’s mother, Jean, is relishing her newfound freedom as a single woman in Europe. Distracted by their individual concerns, the three women are ill-prepared for the crisis that suddenly appears on Diane’s doorstep in the form of a handsome FBI agent asking about an explosive secret that’s laid buried for decades.
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Nancy! Is there a sequel? What?
- By PattieLynn on 12-02-22
By: Nancy Thayer
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In Polite Company
- A Novel
- By: Gervais Hagerty
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Tourists think they see the real Charleston, but Simons Smythe knows there’s more to her hometown than sweet tea and Southern hospitality. Behind the walled gardens, inside the fabled historic homes, live Charleston’s elite. Simons was born into this powerful aristocracy that has quietly ruled the city for centuries.
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Disappointing
- By Sarah A on 08-31-21
By: Gervais Hagerty
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Chanel Bonfire
- By: Wendy Lawless
- Narrated by: Wendy Lawless
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
By the time Wendy Lawless turned 17, she'd known for quite some time that she didn't have a normal mother. But that didn't stop her from wanting one.... Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She went through men like Kleenex, and didn't like dogs or children. Georgann had the ice queen beauty of a Hitchcock heroine and the cold heart to match.
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Not an Engaging Listen
- By Sobriquet on 03-13-13
By: Wendy Lawless
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The Time Traveler's Wife
- By: Audrey Niffenegger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Phoebe Strole
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.
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One of my favorite books
- By Joey on 01-13-08
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He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
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So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
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The year before her thirtieth birthday, Jen Ruiz decided to change everything. Despite being professionally accomplished and contributing to the world as an attorney at a nonprofit, she had yet to achieve the most important goal, according to society: becoming a wife and mother. So, after more ghostings than a graveyard, tired of dating apps and sitting in a windowless office, Jen embarked on an epic challenge to send her twenties out in style. Twelve months, twelve trips, no excuses.
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What listeners say about Motherland
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lorilee R.
- 09-21-20
Honest & resilient
I loved how authentic and vulnerable this love story is written of a daughters journey through life up to present day. I highly recommend for anyone looking at their own story and relationships growing up with family, guardians, caregivers, etc. It was an interesting, lovely, relatable and resilient read.
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2 people found this helpful
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- E.A. Poe
- 08-03-24
Bravo!
I LOVED this book. For the very first time in a very long time, I felt that I was not alone. I am an only child who grew up emeshed in a codependent relationship with my mother. Setting boundaries in adulthood turned the relationship toxic. Now, I am navigating the caretaking of an elderly parent and finding it very difficult. This book gave me respite.
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- NMwritergal
- 11-17-21
One of the best memoirs of 2021
I read about 300 books a year and as of mid-November 2021, I think I've only rated about 10 books 5 stars, this was one of them and since I didn't get it from the library, I can review it. (Pssst: Also read Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang). Heard the author on NPR, and they rarely steer me wrong so I bought it.
As far as I'm concerned, everyone has an interesting enough life to write a memoir--yes, it helps if you have an unusual story, but it's all in the execution, and Altman delivers a short, tightly written memoir about her certifiably narcissistic mother and what that relationship means to her, has cost her, and the love that is still there despite everything.
Altman's writing is so strong, strong enough that I actually understood how she could still love a mother who I'm frankly surprised that nobody killed in a blind rage. Her mother is that bad.
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- Rebecca Rice-Wilson
- 09-09-19
Amazing!
Finished it in a couple days. it was riveting!
Thank you for your vulnerability! Loved it
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- Daina
- 08-17-19
individual therapy
if you have a mommy dearest relationship, you might find solace here in this story. Mother is a trainwreck of a mother; daughter is trying work through this individual matter in her public writing. I wouldn't recommend for general consumption.
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3 people found this helpful