Mary Gordon reflects on her relationship with her mother, who died in 2002 at the age of ninety-four, discussing how her own life was influenced by her mother's choices, beliefs, and tragedies.
Five women become close friends through a common devotion to Father Cyprian, whose special vocation is working women. Among the women there is one child, Felicitas, and the book reveals her development as an amalgam of them all.
A chronicle of the author's search for information about her father who died when she was seven years old, discussing how she was forced to give up the romanticized image she had held of him for so long, and in the process had to reevaluate her own life.
Maria Meyers travels to Ireland after learning her daughter, Pearl, has chained herself to the U.S. Embassy and not eaten for six weeks, leading Maria to question her daughter's upbringing and the circumstances that have brought her to this point.
