A poignant meditation on the bonds between mothers and daughters—and the inescapable effects of time—from the author of A Wrinkle in Time.
In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine L’Engle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for L’Engle’s ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mother’s health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, L’Engle 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, L’Engle delves into her memories, reflecting on the lives of the strong women in her family’s 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.
- ISBN10 150406447X
- ISBN13 9781504064477
- Publish Date 11 August 2020 (first published 1 January 1974)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Open Road Media
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 245
- Language English