Wild Game
My Mother, Her Lover and Me
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A daughter's tale of living in the thrall of her magnetic, complicated mother, and the chilling consequences of her complicity
Every time I fail to become more like my mother, I become more like me.
On a hot August night on Cape Cod, when Adrienne was 14, her mother Malabar woke her at midnight with five simple words that would set the course of both of their lives for years to come: Ben Souther just kissed me.
Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention; from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend. The affair would have calamitous consequences for everyone involved, impacting Adrienne’s life in profound ways, driving her into a doomed marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. Only years later will she find the strength to embrace her life -- and her mother -- on her own terms.
This is a book about how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them. It's about the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. It’s about mothers and daughters and the nature of family. And ultimately, it's a story of resilience, a reminder that we need not be the parents our parents were to us; that moving forward is possible.
'Not since The Glass Castle has a memoir conveyed such a complex family bond, in which love, devotion, and corrosive secrets are inextricably linked' J. Courtney Sullivan
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This page-turning memoir about an especially fraught mother-daughter relationship from novelist Brodeur (Man Camp) reads like heady beach fiction. At age 14, Brodeur became enmeshed in her mother Malabar's affair with Ben a married lifelong friend of Brodeur's stepfather Charles covering for them even after Charles's death. At 21, Brodeur cheated on a boyfriend with Ben's son Jack: "like our parents before us, we spoke in a language rich in innuendo." She later became engaged to Jack, who knew nothing of their parents' affair, and kept quiet about it until Ben confessed to his family and ended the relationship with Malabar. Brodeur and Jack's wedding became "Malabar's battleground. She would be radiant... and show Ben what he was missing"; to that end, Malabar brought out a family heirloom promised to Brodeur on her wedding day a necklace of allegedly priceless gems and wore it herself. Wealth and social prominence abound against a summertime Cape Cod backdrop: Malabar was a Boston Globe food columnist, Charles founded the Plimoth Plantation living history museum, and Ben was a proud Mayflower descendant. Nine months after Ben's wife's died, Ben and Malabar married, and Malabar quickly cut off Brodeur, whose own marriage was crumbling: "Now that Malabar finally had Ben... she no longer needed me." This layered narrative of deceit, denial, and disillusionment is a surefire bestseller.
