Mother Knows 24 Tales of Motherhood

by Burmeister-Brown, Susan; Swanson-Davies, Linda B.

• ISBN13: 9780743488785
• ISBN10: 0743488784
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-20
• Publisher: Washington Square Press

Summary

Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Bausch, and twenty-one other celebrated American writers contribute to this moving anthology of fiction, compiled by the editors of theGlimmer Trainliterary quarterly.In the ten-plus years since Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B. Swanson-Davies foundedGlimmer Train,they have introduced an astonishing array of talented and innovative authors to a growing readership hungry for inspiring fiction. The stunning stories in this anthology -- many of which have never appeared anywhere except inGlimmer Train Stories-- explore one of the most complex emotional and psychological ties of all: motherhood, and its many facets.The writers inMother Knowsinclude established authors as well as up-and-coming talents like Junot DIaz and award-winning writers like Robin Bradford, Nancy Reisman, Lee Martin, and Doug Crandell. Their stories demonstrate that motherhood is more than toilet training and tantrum control, as they portray the full, fierce, joyous, and frightening range of experience that marks this state of being.Mother Knowsis a thoughtful and powerful exploration of the most mysterious bond in life.

Author Biography

Susan Burmeister-Brown and her sister, Linda B. Swanson-Davies, have been editing the national literary quarterly Glimmer Train for more than a decade. They live in Portland, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Karen Outen
WHAT'S LEFT BEHIND	1	(29)
Dianne King Akers
SMALL SPEAKING PARTS	30	(18)
Monica Wood
FROST: A LOVE STORY	48	(6)
H.G. Carrillo
LECHE	54	(13)
Susanna Bullock
4149A	67	(13)
Diane Chang
MOTHER KNOWS	80	(11)
Richard Bausch
WEATHER	91	(21)
Michael Frank
IN THE BED OF FORGETTING	112	(21)
Ayse Papatya Bucak
HITCH	133	(17)
George Makana Clark
BACKMILK	150	(9)
Ronald F Currie Jr.
VISITING YOUR GRAVE	159	(6)
Jennifer Seoyuen Oh
JANUARY	165	(11)
Junot Diaz
INVIERNO	176	(17)
Nancy Reisman
THE GOOD LIFE	193	(22)
Karenmary Penn
RIFT	215	(15)
J. Patrice Whetsell
THE COCONUT LADY	230	(7)
Nathan Long
TRACKING	237	(6)
Margo Rabb
How TO FIND LOVE	243	(13)
Joyce Carol Oates
THE MISSING PERSON	256	(16)
Doug Crandell
COLORED GLASS	272	(12)
Lee Martin
LOVE FIELD	284	(17)
Ioanna Carlsen
GOING HOME	301	(10)
Robin Bradford
BOB MARLEY IS DEAD	311	(22)
Ann Beattie
SOLITUDE	333	(12)
The Writers	345

Excerpts

Foreword

Susan and I tend to converse with our faces rather than our voices. We're sisters. And we've worked side by side since February 8, 1982, and have made a point of having at least a little hole in the wall -- literally -- between us so we could communicate this way.

Now we have a wavy glass divider between our two desks, just up to the tops of our noses, so we have complete privacy and focus until we both look up -- or until one of us snorts, usually Susan. (Hahahahah! That's what you get for makingmewrite this!)

In 1957, our parents decided to switch paths -- moving from city life to farming -- and, being romantics, conceived Susan, a new life in celebration of a new life. I became a serious farm girl, and Susan became a happily voracious reader by the time she was three. When she was ten, the eye doctor delivered the frightful news that Susan would go blind within a couple of years. Mom, also an unstoppable reader, said simply,No.And she was right, I believe, because she said so. Mom, a powerful woman, loved us, and we knew it.

In 1969, our big sister, Dabby, and her husband, Art, took us on a two-month, cross-country road trip. It was grand, but Susan, still only ten, was heartbroken with missing our mom. When we were reunited with our parents, Mom promised Susan that she would never be gone so long from her again.

As Susan recalls, "It was the recent memory of that painful separation that first came to me when she told me the next early spring that she was dying. I could not imagine how I would survive it. And to make matters more complicated, as mother matters often are, I was going through the age-eleven rebellion against her at the time. I was embarrassed that she could no longer speak; I was embarrassed that her head was shaved and that she had lost some of her propriety; I was embarrassed to bring friends home. On the night before she died at home, she waved each of us over to her separately and said the first word she'd been able to speak since that spring.Love,she said. When she looked at me, she somehow absolved me of my guilt. I knew she understood, that all was all right with us. She never awoke the next morning. And yet, she has kept her promise. I have never felt she has been far away."

I married in 1971, divorced in 1990, remarried him in 1999. Great guy, both times and still. We have one wonderful daughter, Erin, already striking out on her own. Susan and her husband had their son, a sweet boy named Henry (after our father), in 1995. And life goes on.

Mothers. We have them, we lose them, we shun them, we need them, we become them or we don't. There is always love and loss. And there are stories.

-- Linda B. Swanson-Davies

Copyright © 2004 by Glimmer Train Press, Inc.

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Excerpted from Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.