Forgetting My Mother

“A lovely book: moving, textured, honest, tinged with love and regret and bewilderment and faith and gentle humor.”

—Poet and editor George Witte, author of Does She Have a Name?

“Dan Cryer tells the story of his mother’s death and the impact on the eight-year-old he was with steely precision and deep courage, yet with the lyricism of the esteemed writer he has been in a long career. It is a sad and elegiac story but also a haunting mystery tale—as Dan assembles letters, diaries, yearbooks and newspaper clippings to recreate a portrait of the woman he barely knew. Along the way, the reader will get a vivid, nuanced picture of daily life in a Midwestern town governed by the centrality of church, sports and the doctrine of 'niceness.' It's a work you will want to share with people you hold dear.”

—Joseph Berger, author of Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust

“This intelligent and deeply moving memoir opens the door to a lost time and place, while evoking the mysteries of a mother-child bond lost and found.”

—Laura Pedersen, author of Buffalo Gal: A Memoir