Read this when
Are You My Mother?
When your mom stopped kissing you goodnight at 7 and you spent the next 40 years in therapy figuring out why. 📚
Who it's for
Bechdel examines her relationship with her mother, Helen, who stopped kissing her goodnight when she was seven, weaving her therapy sessions with psychoanalyst D.W.
Feelings it meets
What it is
A 2012 graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel and the follow-up to Fun Home, shifting focus from her father to her mother. Bechdel explores her relationship with her mother alongside her experiences with therapists and partners, interweaving psychoanalytic ideas, especially Donald Winnicott's and Alice Miller's, with references to Virginia Woolf and Adrienne Rich.
Where to find it
In print; widely available from libraries (Libby/Hoopla). Still in copyright.
Before you start
Heads up: Emotional neglect and a father's death.
Age: Ages 16+
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 1, Chapter 1 (tr. Constance Garnett)
