His Mother’s Life Was a Mystery He Needed to Solve
Writing about the dead is difficult business. Whenever I write about my mother, I spend a lot of time struggling to recall: How did she take her coffee? What music made her dance? When she laughed, did she throw her head back, like I do? My ability to answer these questions—to try to create an honest portrait of her on the page—is constrained by the five and a half years we spent together before she died.




























