Landslide True Stories

Minna Proctor s Landslide is a charismatic, darkly funny collection of linked essays which primarily explore the author s complicated relationship with her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer at age 57 and died a decade later. A subtle exploration of the ways in which their fierce mother-daughter connection became the "prime mover" in Proctor s life, these lively essays also cover the trials and triumphs of Proctor s own life her reckless youth, the bumpy start and quick dissolution of her first marriage, the pleasure she takes from her two children, the health scares that threaten to take her hard earned pleasures away, the mythology she constructs in her writing, and the confounding experience of reconciling with her mother after her death. Through these essays, Proctor pushes against her own memory and challenges her own narrative. We all have totemic stories, she writes. The way we choose them and then choose to tell them is more important ultimately than the actual events. In Landslide, Proctor bewitchingly examines the twists and turns of life with great flair, but without artifice or self-consciousness there is a sense of intimacy as if Proctor is telling these stories only to you."

Minna Zallman Proctor's Landslide is a captivating collection of interconnected personal essays. These "true stories" explore the author's complicated relationship with her mother--who was diagnosed with cancer at age fifty-seven and died fifteen years later--and the ways in which their connection was long the "prime mover" of Proctor's life, the subtle force coursing beneath her adulthood. As such, Proctor's vibrant essays also narrate the trials and triumphs of her own life--shifting between America and Italy (and loving "being a foreigner, the constant sense of unfamiliarity that supplanted all of my expectations and disappointments"), the bumpy start and quick dissolution of her first marriage, the profound pleasure she takes in motherhood, the love and resentment she feels in a reigning friendship from her youth, and the confounding experience of trying to arrange a Jewish burial for her "Jewish, not quite Jewish" mother.

Proctor has an integrity and humor that is never extinguished despite life's mounting difficulties. She also slyly questions her own narrative throughout. "Not having told this story before means I never fixed many details in my memory," she writes. " I] have to rely on flashes, the transparent stills that hang in my] mind, made of smell, the way the light casts, the wind on my] skin." The essays in this book are a sharply intelligent exploration of what happens when death and divorce unmoor you from certainties, and about the unreliable stories we tell ourselves, and others, in order to live.

"Landslide is that rare book that somehow succeeds in being both knowing and open-hearted, both formally sly and emotionally direct . . . A swift, compelling read." --Adam Haslett, author of Imagine Me Gone

Minna Zallman Proctor's Landslide is a captivating collection of interconnected personal essays. These "true stories" explore the author's complicated relationship with her mother--who was diagnosed with cancer at age fifty-seven and died fifteen years later--and the ways in which their connection was long the "prime mover" of Proctor's life, the subtle force coursing beneath her adulthood. As such, these vibrant essays also narrate the trials and triumphs of Proctor's own life--shifting between America and Italy (and loving "being a foreigner, the constant sense of unfamiliarity that supplanted all of my expectations and disappointments"), her bumpy first marriage, the profound pleasure she takes in motherhood, and the confounding experience of trying to arrange a Jewish burial for her "Jewish, not quite Jewish" mother.

Proctor has an integrity and humor that is never extinguished despite life's mounting difficulties. She also slyly questions her own narrative throughout. "Not having told this story before means I never fixed many details in my memory," she writes. " I] have to rely on flashes, the transparent stills that hang in my mind, made of smell, the way the light casts, the wind on skin." The essays in this book are a sharply intelligent exploration of what happens when death and divorce unmoor you from certainties, and about the unreliable stories we tell ourselves, and others, in order to live.

"Landslide is that rare book that somehow succeeds in being both knowing and open-hearted, both formally sly and emotionally direct. Its timeless subjects--grief, storytelling, the giving up of childish things--are rendered in ways that are as movingly honest as they are probing and unfamiliar. A swift, compelling read." --Adam Haslett, author of Imagine Me Gone

Minna Zallman Proctor's Landslide is a captivating collection of interconnected personal essays. These "true stories" explore the author's complicated relationship with her mother--who was diagnosed with cancer at age fifty-seven and died fifteen years later--and the ways in which their connection was long the "prime mover" of Proctor's life, the subtle force coursing beneath her adulthood. As such, these vibrant essays also narrate the trials and triumphs of Proctor's own life--shifting between America and Italy (and loving "being a foreigner, the constant sense of unfamiliarity that supplanted all of my expectations and disappointments"), her bumpy first marriage, the profound pleasure she takes in motherhood, and the confounding experience of trying to arrange a Jewish burial for her "Jewish, not quite Jewish" mother.

Proctor has an integrity and humor that is never extinguished despite life's mounting difficulties. She also slyly questions her own narrative throughout. "Not having told this story before means I never fixed many details in my memory," she writes. " I] have to rely on flashes, the transparent stills that hang in my mind, made of smell, the way the light casts, the wind on skin." The essays in this book are a sharply intelligent exploration of what happens when death and divorce unmoor you from certainties, and about the unreliable stories we tell ourselves, and others, in order to live.