The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

A poignant meditation on the bonds between mothers and daughtersand the inescapable effects of timefrom the author of A Wrinkle in Time. In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine LEngle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for LEngles ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mothers health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, LEngle describes the gifts and graces, as well as the painful emotional cost, of caring for the one who once cared for you. As she spends her days with a mother who barely resembles the competent and vigorous woman who bore and raised her, LEngle delves into her memories, reflecting on the lives of the strong women in her familys history. Evoking both personal experiences and universal themes, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother takes an unflinching look at diminishment and death, all the while celebrating the wonder of life.