Until high school, Kate Feiffer believed that her mother Judy's novel, "A Hot Property," was about real estate. Then a boyfriend plucked the book from the shelves, started reading passages aloud, and revealed it was a piece of 1970s erotica. From then until just a few years ago, Kate considered "A Hot Property" to be her literary Waterloo — the book she'd hoped to conquer but never been able to. But after her mother's death, she picked up the novel and — between bouts of screaming and cringing — found something more thoughtful and reflective than she was expecting. Here's what she wrote for LitHub.
@CultureDesk@bookstodon I think that truly understanding our parents is the hardest thing in the world to do, and we only feel like we ever knew them when we've passed through all the ages of life ourself.
@khleedril@CultureDesk@bookstodon That assumes that you have the same lifespan as your parents, and follow a similar life path. I am solitary and childless, and decades older than my mother lived to be, so in many ways our experiences would be mutually alien.
Add comment