{"id":125337,"date":"2018-05-15T13:12:34","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T17:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=125337"},"modified":"2018-05-15T13:41:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T17:41:52","slug":"redux-reading-about-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/15\/redux-reading-about-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Reading About Mom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked\u00a0pieces delivered straight to your inbox every\u00a0Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Happy Mother\u2019s Day! This week, read Nadine Gordimer\u2019s\u00a0Art of Fiction\u00a0<\/a>interview to learn why her mother would say, \u201cNow, take it slowly, remember your heart<\/em>\u201d; Lorrie Moore\u2019s story \u201cTerrific Mother<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0about a woman who is too often told she would be one; and\u00a0Paul Carroll\u2019s poem \u201cMother<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nadine Gordimer, The Art of Fiction No. 77<\/a>
\nIssue no. 88 (Summer\u00a01983)<\/em><\/p>\n

I was taken to the family doctor, and it was discovered that I had an incredibly rapid heartbeat \u2026\u00a0My mother got very alarmed. This rapid pulse should have been ignored. But my mother was quite sure that it meant that I had a \u201cbad heart.\u201d So she went immediately to the convent where I attended school and told the nuns, \u201cThis child mustn\u2019t have any physical training, she mustn\u2019t play tennis, she mustn\u2019t even swim.\u201d At ten, you know, you don\u2019t argue with your mother\u2014she tells you you\u2019re sick, you believe her.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really only in the last decade of my life that I\u2019ve been able to face all this. When I realized what my mother had done to me, I went through, at the age of twenty, such resentment\u2014this happens to many of us, but I\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0had reason. When I was thirty, I began to understand why she did it, and thus to pity her. By the time she died in \u201976 we were reconciled. But it was an extraordinary story.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gordon Parks, Ella Watson, Washington, D.C., 1942.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Terrific Mother<\/a>
\nBy Lorrie Moore
\nIssue no. 124 (Fall 1992)<\/em><\/p>\n

Although she had been around them her whole life, it was when she reached thirty-five that holding babies seemed to make her nervous\u2014just at the beginning, a twinge of stage fright swinging up from the gut. \u201cAdrienne, would you like to hold the baby? Would you mind?\u201d Always these words from a woman her age looking kind and beseeching\u2014a former friend, she was losing her friends to babble and beseech\u2014and Adrienne would force herself to breathe deep. Holding a baby was no longer natural\u2014she was no longer natural\u2014but a test of womanliness and earthly skills. She was being observed. People looked to see how she would do it. She had entered a puritanical decade, a demographic moment\u2014whatever it was\u2014when the best compliment you could get was: You would make a terrific mother. The wolf whistle of the nineties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mother<\/a>
\nBy Paul Carroll
\nIssue no. 34 (Spring\u2013Summer 1965)<\/em><\/p>\n

If I seem to patronize and always limit what I say
\nto the clich\u00e9s of affection, mother,
\nand never give a good goddamn what you are doing:
\nbut boast instead
\nhow I will rake $10,000 in this year;
\nand with crude, belligerent hints, propped by \u201cproofs\u201d
\nfrom analysis and common sense,
\nthrow my sex life in your face;
\nand if I never kiss you anymore<\/p>\n

and break our Tuesday dinner dates too often:
\nit is because I can still remember
\nsprawling on your bed, reciting the litany
\nof the Virgin Mary with you,
\neven after I\u2019d begun to shave.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read, why not\u00a0become a subscriber<\/span><\/a>? You\u2019ll get instant access\u00a0to our entire sixty-five-year archive, not to mention four issues of new interviews, poetry, and fiction.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked\u00a0pieces delivered straight to your inbox every\u00a0Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter.     Happy Mother\u2019s Day! This week, read Nadine Gordimer\u2019s\u00a0Art of Fiction\u00a0interview to learn why her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[6437,2270,12331,34060,34059],"class_list":["post-125337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux","tag-lorrie-moore","tag-mother","tag-nadine-gordimer","tag-paul-carroll","tag-terrific-mother"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: Reading About Mom by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, in honor of Mother\u2019s Day, we\u2019re giving you free access to an interview, a short story, and a poem on motherhood.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/15\/redux-reading-about-mom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redux: Reading About Mom by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 15, 2018 \u2013 Every week, the editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. 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