Memoirs about Mothers

Memoirs about Mothers

This article relates to This Is Your Mother

Erika J. Simpson's This Is Your Mother is an unconventional memoir about the author's mother Sallie Carol. Below we highlight some other recommended memoirs in which an author reflects on their relationship with their mother, often (but not always) after her death.

Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou: Angelou's seventh volume of autobiography is an honest portrayal of her mother, Vivian Baxter, who sent three-year-old Maya and her five-year-old brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in Arkansas. It took years to rebuild their relationship after a 10-year separation, but Angelou writes that the woman she called "Lady" supported her and taught her "to live my life with pizazz."

The End Is the Beginning: A Personal History of My Mother by Jill Bialosky: Bialosky's mother, Iris, died in a nursing home in 2020, after a decade of declining slowly with Alzheimer's. The narrative travels backwards through Iris's life, reasserting her identity and celebrating the bravery she showed as a widowed mother of four daughters, one of whom died by suicide, and as a plucky girl who lost her own mother at the age of 10.

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride: McBride's father was African American, while his mother, Ruth Jordan, was Jewish, born the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi in Poland and raised in Virginia. She brought up 12 Black children on the poverty line after her family disowned her and told her son that God wasn't Black or white but all colors and no colors at the same time — the color of water.

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy: McCurdy's narcissistic mother pushed her into a career as a child actor on Nickelodeon — and into disordered eating — between bouts with cancer. The book recreates McCurdy's childhood perspective on growing up in a Mormon household in California, crafting vivid and very funny scenes despite the sadness and dysfunction of her upbringing.

Oh My Mother! A Memoir in Nine Adventures by Connie Wang: Wang's memoir-in-essays follows her first-generation immigrant mother Qing from China to the midwestern United States. She also writes of their shared love of travel, from the Disney World visits of Wang's childhood to a trip to Paris's Versailles Palace — inspired by their mutual interest in fashion — when the author was working as a journalist.

Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis by Greg Wrenn: Wrenn reflects on the roles that his mother, and Mother Earth, have played in his life. The former relationship was unhealthy, abusive, and codependent, leaving him with complex PTSD; the latter has likewise been complicated, in that he takes joy in exploring coral reefs around the world yet is painfully aware of how human behavior is leading to climate breakdown.

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This article relates to This Is Your Mother. It first ran in the May 21, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.