A memoir about a mother-daughter relationship across cycles of poverty, separation, and illness, exploring how we forge identity in the face of imminent loss.
Compelling ... Evocative ... Forthright, heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful ... Simpson is indeed a gifted storyteller ... Gripping ... Provide[s] a balanced and comprehensive depiction of a wildly contradictory figure ...
Another section that is particularly compelling includes 'scenes' from the Fox TV show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. In these segments, real-life host Jonathan Frakes describes the miracles Sallie Carol experienced throughout her life and asks the reader to judge if they truly happened. These uplifting passages are brilliantly timed ... The scripts of the conversations Simpson wishes she had with her mother deliver a spectacular gut-punch ... All the elements come together to create a stunning composite of a complex woman as seen through her daughter. Raw, lingering and honest, This Is Your Mother is one incredible memoir.
[Erika J. Simpson is] supremely talented ... Eloquent ... She adeptly scatters random pop culture notes throughout her memoir like artifacts. These are perhaps a bit jarring until you begin to understand that the randomness mimics Simpson’s life with her mother.
Bewitching ... Simpson enlivens the often bleak proceedings with innovative narrative techniques: she writes exclusively in the present tense, frames some of Sallie’s most outrageous antics as a sitcom script, and signposts the account with chapter and verse quotes from the imaginary Book of Sallie Carol ('2:6: Conceal what’s real'). Readers will be wowed.
