Pieces of My Mother, Melissa Cistaro
Pieces of My Mother, Melissa Cistaro
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Pieces of My Mother
A Memoir

Author: Melissa Cistaro

Narrator: Angela Brazil

Unabridged: 8 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/05/2015

Synopsis

This provocative, poignant memoir of a daughter whose mother left her behind by choice begs the question: Are we destined to make the same mistakes as our parents?One summer, Melissa Cistaro's mother drove off without explanation. Devastated, Melissa and her brothers were left to pick up the pieces, always tormented by the thought: Why did their mother abandon them?Thirty-five years later, with children of her own, Melissa finds herself in Olympia, Washington, as her mother is dying. After decades of hiding her painful memories, she has just days to find out what happened that summer and confront the fear she could do the same to her kids. But Melissa never expects to stumble across a cache of letters her mother wrote to her but never sent—letters that could hold the answers she seeks.Haunting yet ultimately uplifting, Pieces of My Mother chronicles one woman's quest to discover what drives a mother to walk away from the children she loves. Alternating between Melissa's tumultuous coming-of-age and her mother's final days, this captivating memoir reveals how our parents' choices impact our own and how we can survive those to forge our own paths.

About Melissa Cistaro

Melissa Cistaro is an events coordinator at Book Passage, the legendary San Francisco Bay area independent bookstore. A writer and mother, she has been published in numerous literary journals, as well as in two anthologies alongside Anne Larnott, Jane Smiley, and others. She lives in San Francisco.

About Angela Brazil

Angela Brazil is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and a professional actor who is proud to be a long-standing member of the Resident Acting Company at Trinity Repertory Company. She also teaches at the Brown/Trinity Conservatory.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carmen on March 30, 2015

This book hit such a chord in me that I really had a hard time discussing it for a bit. My situation is not the same but parrallel. I too made peace with my Mom but it was as I moved her in with me to care for her after her cancer diagnosis. I had the most intense, important, healing, painful, and j......more

Goodreads review by Judy on January 25, 2016

A special thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for an ARC exchange for an honest review. Coming in Paperback, Feb 2, 2016. The word on the street is that Pieces of My Mother will be a great selection for book clubs! Melissa Cistaro courageously steps out to deliver a poignant memoir, PIECES OF MY......more

Goodreads review by Erin on March 05, 2015

This memoir falls firmly into the category of "I'm sorry that your life sucked but that doesn't mean that you should write about it." Melissa Cistaros had a difficult childhood, and the constant non-presence of her mother probably made more of an impact than her presence ever could. It's hard to be......more

Goodreads review by Deah on October 07, 2016

I was hovering between 3 and 4 stars- I liked the book, trying to decide if I "really" liked it. I decided to go with four because it is really well written. I found I had a hard time identifying with the author due to two decisions she makes. One, to leave her own children and husband on Christmas......more

Goodreads review by Lauriann on August 18, 2015

This was a fast read for me, and an interesting one. The author recalls a pivotal childhood moment of waving goodbye to her mother from her window. From that point on she suffered issues of abandonment as she longed for her mother to return. As she became an adult, anger and resentment became strong......more

Quotes

“Melissa Cistaro’s imagery is startling and vivid, her story brutally honest and devoid of judgment. Pieces of My Mother is a story that lingers in the heart long after the last page is turned.” Hope Edelman, New York Times bestselling author

“Sometimes we are defined as much by the person who is missing as the person who is there. Melissa Cistaro has a story to tell and one you don’t hear every day. I was deeply moved from word one.” Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author

“This is an astonishing book full of heartbreak and love and hard-won wisdom. Melissa Cistaro writes beautifully not just about her search for the mother who abandoned her but about the myriad ways parents and children don’t and do connect. Told in vivid scenes and through the texts of letters her mother never sent, Cistaro chronicles a journey that goes way past forgiveness to true understanding.” Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author

“An undercurrent of unresolved hurt and anger runs through this affecting and deeply restrained narrative of a mother’s abandonment of her children…As her mother lay dying, Cistaro found a cache of ‘letters never sent’ in her mother’s house, and though they help Cistaro sift through the wounded memories, there is no tidy reckoning between mother and daughter in this sad cycle of emotional devastation.” Publishers Weekly

“This is a tale of seeking and hoping for forgiveness and enlightenment. Cistaro’s prose is not maudlin but questing. Though she may not find all the answers she needs, she returns, stronger, to her own family, perhaps understanding her mother’s hope of her ‘recognizing…the person I am as opposed to the figure I am supposed to represent.’ A poignant exploration of choices and their reverberations.” Booklist

“An honest and affecting story of the many complexities involved with family relationships.” Kirkus Reviews

“I read this book in one uninterrupted, lump-in-the-throat sitting. Equal parts memoir and emotional whodunit, Pieces of My Mother is a beautiful, wrenching story, meticulously crafted. Cistaro understands all too well the fallibility of memory, the desire to be a flawless mother, and the fear of having inherited the gene for the opposite.” Katie Hafner, author of Mother Daughter Me

Awards

  • Kirkus Reviews Pick
  • Indie Next List
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