𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒅 𝒖𝒔. 𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒚, 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓.

Trying to understand our mothers as people can feel like an impossible task, but for Nina, the mystery hides in flames. On November 10, 1971, Nina’s mother, only twenty at the time, lit herself on fire bound together with another woman, a decade before she gave birth to Nina. Lucky to survive, her burns were severe, leaving scars that would crawl over her flesh and stop at her chin, a strange blessing amidst the horror. A year after the episode, her mother became a certified TM (Transcendental Meditation) teacher, devoted to Maharishi and married Nina’s father, both true believers. It is the beginning of chasing transcendental experiences, forsaking comfort, and the usual trappings of life to reach pure enlightenment. It isn’t long before her parents’ marriage is over, and she takes off to raise Nina as a single mother. Men cannot seem to keep her anymore than her devotion to TM can.

Nina comes of age while her mother dabbles in esoteric practices and refuses any person, place or practice that attempts to control her. This memoir is about living in constant motion, as people slip in and out of their lives, the constant becomes Nina and her mother trying to feed her spiritual hunger. Moving to new towns, always the outsider living in motel rooms, it was a social nightmare for a kid at school. A baby comes along when they are living in California, making them a trio when her brother Chris is born. For a time, living is communal, women helping each other “pooling resources” like food, like-minded new age believers, it was nothing to hear talk of aliens. But the comfort doesn’t last. Before, she may not have fully believed in what both her parents taught her (her father was in Texas and big on meditation), but as Nina grows up, becomes more aware of the divide between reality and her mother’s delusions, she begins to feel fear. No one is there to step in and recognize her mother’s mental decline, and even living at the foot of a mountain in California that is believed to be a sacred place ‘between heaven and earth’ will not cure what ails her family. Nina explores the meaning of all these departures, sifting through the reasons why her mother bucked convention, and attempts to understand what sinister force from which she was running. Consumed with a burning passion, fire wasn’t done with this family, glowing on the periphery and showing itself again, leaving destruction, ashes and pain in its aftermath. No one understands the burn than her. The romance of the mystical loses its allure when irrationality reigns supreme and yet there is love. Love may be the only glue keeping her mother together at the seams, for a time.

This is a gorgeous, heart-breaking read about mental illness, spirituality, escapism, family, and growing up between two worlds. Yes, read it!

Published May 7, 2024

Penguin Group Dutton

A beautifully written memoir. The author uses her childhood experience to take the reader through a story but also an exploration of social constructs that limit our understanding and care of women and mental health.

Thank you to Netgally and the publisher for a copy of this book. It’s available now!

Thank you to NetGalley & Dutton for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I struggled to get into this book and forced myself to finish it. I felt as if the author jumped around and that left me lost and having to reread parts. I really wanted to enjoy this because I thought it would hit home for me now learning of my own mother's mental health diagnosis and reevaluating my childhood like Nina is doing in this story.

As the memoir opens, St. Pierre explains that the carpet in the new house that she lived in with her mother and younger brother burst into flames when they were sleeping with a space heater by their feet. St. Pierre knows a lot about fire. Ten years before she was born, her mother and another young woman lit themselves on fire blocks from the University of Michigan where St. Pierre’s mother had been a student. Her mother incurred third degree burns over most of her body and spent six months in a burn center where a nurse initiated her into Transcendental Meditation.

St. Pierre’s father was a longtime TM practitioner and devotee from a privileged family, and he and St. Pierre’s mother moved to Fairfield, Iowa, the heart of America’s growing TM movement. After three years of marriage and shortly after St. Pierre’s birth, her mother hastily departed because, as St. Pierre later determines, her mother valued autonomy above all else. St. Pierre’s peripatetic childhood is filled with such impulsive decisions -- a string of cheap lodging up the California coast supported by meager child-support and welfare checks – as Nina’s mother pursues enlightenment. “People slipped in and out of our lives like water. It was all an adventure still. Leaving, just part of the game. I hadn’t yet learned that, to my mother, home itself was a moveable thing.”

The family, with the addition of St. Pierre’s younger half-brother, settle in Siskiyou County, in the desolate northern reaches of California, at the foot of Mount Shasta, an area which attracted seekers, mysticism and charlatans. They got by with the support of a network of women “who’d left the Midwest and rebirthed themselves where the land met the sea” and cobbled together jobs in daycare and housekeeping. Her mother was free to embrace “her bushwhacking mashup of Catholicism and everything under the New Age umbrella.”

St. Pierre crafts a vivid memoir of her fragile relationship with her mentally disabled mother while providing a novel way to think about mental illness and family trauma. A heart-rending familial portrait for readers who engage with memoirs of life with a mentally ill parent, such as “The Glass Castle.” Thank you Dutton and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this moving memoir.

Love is a Burning Thing is an extraordinary book, made even more so because this is a memoir, not fiction. All of the things that happened to the author and her family are real, and that makes this story even more riveting and touching and disturbing. Nina and her brother grew up with a mom who had so many issues – and who survived lighting herself on fire in a suicide attempt - it’s hard to even imagine how stressful their childhood must have been.

Their mother dragged them all over California, in such of some “truth” somewhere. At times almost normal, but much of the time neglectful, she often left them mostly on their own with nothing to guide them except her explanations of the latest enlightenment she was chasing. Nina and her brother Chris rarely had a chance to fit in, to not be those other, weird kids, to know long they would stay in one place. It’s amazing that Nina came out on the other side as she did.

This is a book that is hard to describe. It’s one of those books you hand to a friend and say, “You absolutely must read this. You won’t be able to put it down.” It’s well-written, detailed, heartbreaking. Thanks to Penguin Random House, Penguin Group Dutton for providing an advance copy of Love is a Burning Thing via NetGalley. It will grab you and keep you reading far into the night. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

The way we grow up sets our definitions of what “normal” is. Childhood prepares us for the way we interpret and react to the world around us: with fear, with enthusiasm, with curiosity, with anger, etc. In Love is a Burning Thing, Nina St. Pierre takes us into a childhood where constant motion was normal, with a mother who saw plots and divinity everywhere, when a young girl had to be the parent as often as not. St. Pierre’s long look back is full of questions about mental illness, faith, responsibility, and (maybe) forgiveness.

We know from early in this memoir that St. Pierre’s mother was prone to mental illness. While in college in 1971, Anita set herself on fire at the urgings of a friend. News reports said later that the only thing Anita and her friend said in the hospital was, “It’s lovely to die together.” The friend died. Anita lived, but most of her body was covered in burns. She wore long sleeves, turtlenecks, and other cover-ups for the rest of her life. By the time St. Pierre and her brother, Chris, were born, Anita had learned to seek solace in Transcendental Meditation, the Catholic saints, long road trips, the stars, Mount Shasta, and scraps of many other faiths and practices.

St. Pierre grew up with her mother, though she spent summers with her father and his second wife. The small family crisscrossed California. They took to the road to travel to San Francisco, San Diego, and the small towns around Mount Shasta in the heavily wooded northern part of the state. They lived in tiny apartments, sometimes motel rooms, for the most part. This was normal for St. Pierre, though she often longed for stability, to put down roots somewhere. Her adult reflections reveal that St. Pierre only rarely felt the kind of ecstatic joy or solace that her mother did. St. Pierre was more concerned with making sure bills were paid and that they had a roof over her head. It’s little wonder that, as a teenager, St. Pierre struggled with anger and alcohol.

I found it really hard not to armchair diagnose Anita and found it interesting that St. Pierre, as an adult, doesn’t try to find a psychiatric explanation for her mother’s behavior and paranoia. Instead, St. Pierre dives into the history of New Religious Movements and the ways that people seek out new traditions to find enlightenment, with little (if any) knowledge of that tradition’s language, culture, history, and context. She comments that these seekers may be trying to find a magic bullet to solve all of their problems, rather than dive into the painful and less glamorous work of reducing poverty, feeding the hungry, discouraging racism, or creating lasting justice. If they just pray a little harder, meditate a little longer, or do something a little more, they can transcend the earthly and find a peaceful divine. All of this seeking, however, can make it hard to provide for two children on a shoestring budget. All of this seeking—and constant flight—also showed me that Anita was someone who would never find what she was looking for.

Love is a Burning Thing is a fascinating memoir. I deeply appreciated St. Pierre’s intelligence and vulnerability. Readers who grew up with or know troubled seekers will find a lot to like here.

My mother passed away a year ago. During the time leading up to her death, I really started to realize that my experiences with her were not normal. After she died, I felt free, not sad. Definitely not normal. I started therapy and discovered that my mom had BPD. Here, I am at 50 relearning relationships, boundaries, and figuring out who I am without having to revolve my life and emotions around hers. This book hit home!

"Love Is a Burning Thing" by Nina St. Pierre is a deeply emotional memoir that delves into the complex dynamics of a mother-daughter relationship shaped by mental illness, spiritual seeking, and the enduring impact of trauma. Nina's narrative begins with a startling event from her mother's past—an attempted suicide by setting herself on fire—which sets the tone for a life deeply intertwined with both spiritual pursuits and profound struggles.

Through Nina's eyes, we see the erratic yet heartfelt attempts her mother makes to find peace and transcendence, dragging her family through a labyrinth of spiritual practices and nomadic living. The vivid descriptions of their life at the foot of a mystical mountain in Northern California paint a picture of a childhood marked by both enchantment and instability.

St. Pierre's writing is eloquent and thoughtful, with a reflective tone that invites readers into the deepest parts of her and her mother's lives. The memoir does not shy away from the harsh realities of living with someone whose grasp on reality is tenuous, and it poignantly addresses the impacts of mental health and poverty.

However, the narrative sometimes gets bogged down by extensive references to external texts and theories, which can detract from the personal and narrative-driven aspects of the memoir. While these insights aim to give depth to the understanding of mental health and spirituality, they occasionally interrupt the flow and emotional connection of the story.

Overall, "Love Is a Burning Thing" is a compelling read that offers a unique look at the intersections of love, pain, and the quest for enlightenment. It's a testament to the strength required to face the past and the transformative power of understanding one's own history. This memoir will resonate with anyone interested in the complexities of familial relationships and the human capacity to seek healing and meaning in the face of adversity.

In this coming-of-age memoir, Nina St Pierre aims to make sense of her chaotic childhood and her mother's erratic behavior, which includes self-immolation. I found her personal reflections riveting and deeply affecting. Her gift for is writing evident. I am always amazed by the resilience of individuals raised in unstable homes. Instead of anger, St Pierre chooses compassion and understanding towards her mother, which is remarkable.

I have had such a hard time putting my thoughts about this book into words aside from “it’s STUNNING, you need to read it!”

As someone who has embarked on a journey of my own regarding a parent who feels like a stranger and whose actions I cannot even begin to understand, I felt for Nina as she spent so much time alternating between trying to get as far away from her mother as possible and trying desperately to understand her. What drove her and her friend to start that first fire? What is it about fire that some people find cleansing? While fire is not my mother’s specific method of destruction, neither does she seem to be centered around a path to enlightenment, I recognized in Nina the desire to build something “normal” (whatever that means, lol) for herself while simultaneously reckoning with the pain of estrangement as well as the pain of having to go back and try to parent both her mother and her brother with the added bonus of trying to navigate the legal system after her mother sets a second fire in their home.

While the ending may not be satisfying for everyone, it’s also a lesson that sometimes you have to find the peace that exists between the clues you can put together and the secrets people take with them.

I found St. Pierre's memoir a bit disjointed and unfocused, particularly in the beginning. Some sections read like a biography of her mother, parts non-fiction, and others explored her own life. Her non-fiction explanations were my least favorite. Although sometimes relevant, as were her explanations of her mother's New Age beliefs, they sometimes felt skewed. St. Pierre appears to blame herself for not recognizing her mother's mental illness, though she was only a teenager when she began to witness alarming signs. Further, she had a single mother, so there wasn't another adult present to help her. Part of this guilt plays out in her investigation of how mentally ill people were portrayed in books and movies, particularly in the 1990s when she came of age. Being close in age to her, I had seen many of the same movies at similar ages, and while some of her points aren't wrong, it also doesn't seem fair to pin society's misunderstanding of mental illness too heavily on pop culture.

In some aspects, St. Pierre's mother is well flushed out, but in others I felt like I didn't have a full picture of her or how their complicated relationship worked. Perhaps because St. Pierre was a rebellious teenager spending less time at home during her mother's increasing mental illness, I didn't feel the immediacy of of what must have been sad, chaotic times for her.

The final chapters of the book had the feel of a student ending a thesis paper, as if she were struggling to close the story and trying too hard to come to neat conclusions. All in all, this memoir was a bit of a miss for me, though there are interesting glimpses into a troubled woman prone to setting fires.

A memoir of growing up with a mentally unstable mother.The trauma the author lived through is heartbreaking and she is very brave to share her story

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for an ARC copy of “Love is a Burning Thing” by Nina St. Pierre.

“Love is a Burning Thing” is a memoir by Nina St. Pierre who details her upbringing with a mother who is battling mental illness. Throughout the book, St. Pierre paints her experiences through a lens of resiliency and fortitude that can only be described as truly amazing. It’s tough dealing with a parent who has a mental illness. The home (or what is considered home) is full of instability and anxiety for the children of these parents, and St. Pierre’s writing reflects that. Particularly, I enjoyed? resonated? the mention of the first time her mom had a “walk-in” experience. The terror, St. Pierre writes, of not knowing who this walk-in is that is inhabits her mother. The person she is looking at is no longer her mother but someone else. The way the author encapsulated those feelings truly reflected how I felt when I went through a similar experience in my family.
The biggest complaint I have about this memoir is the amount of references/theoretical frameworks St.Pierre used to supplement her personal experiences. I understand the tool that this can be used, but it felt like all the references took away from her writing.
All-in-all, I appreciated St. Pierre’s willingness to share her story. With themes of mental illness, family, parenting, and poverty I think this memoir will resonate with a lot of readers.

A vivid and haunting story of mother and daughter that’ll stay with you. Every now and then I read a book that leaves me feeling shell shocked, and I can safely say that this was one of them. I went into it blind (I honestly requested it mostly for the title- I’m a Johnny Cash fan), and I found myself relating to it deeply, as someone who has experienced growing up with a mentally ill and paranoid parent. The memoir struck a good balance between and engaging narrative and valuable research on schizophrenia and obsession. While it served as a great case study about the relationships between people suffering from mental illness and their children, it also had a lot of heart- where there was trauma, there was also reverence and a lot of love. I’m glad I read it, and I’m glad Nina’s story was told.

Harrowing and heartbreaking, this is a challenging read for anyone with a mentally ill parent (especially one who has refused treatment for their illness). If you're in that population, tread carefully with this one. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity.

Thank you to NetGalley & Dutton for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this book! It's definitely a challenging read, considering all of the struggles the author and her family went through. St. Pierre's writing is so vivid. This book is a beautiful tale of connection and community, the complexity of family relationships, religion, etc.
I'd recommend looking at what you're getting yourself into before you read it, but I really liked this book!

The author unpacks a lot of childhood trauma with deep research and introspection. She articulates many harrowing experiences and a parental relationship that is complex and harrowing.

A memoir dealing with the author growing up with an unsable mother and the effect it had on her
life and her relationships with family members, friends and members of the community. Looking
back to better understand her mother's actions in order to move forward in her own life,
#LoveisaBurningThing #NetGalley

Love is a Burning Thing is a memoir that covers Nina St. Pierre’s childhood and early adulthood being raised by a mother she ultimately realizes likely had schizophrenia. This led to a lifestyle often lived in poverty and often on the move, with a large amount of instability for Nina and her younger brother Chris. Readers of Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle will see a lot of similarities. I enjoyed Walls’ book more, perhaps because Jeanette found joy in parts of their life even as she eventually realized that many aspects of it weren’t healthy for a child. In the memoir, St. Pierre questions why she never realized what was different about her mother. A mother who self-immolated, who had delusions, who made her beliefs align with her reality. When a child is raised in that type of environment and knows nothing different, I would maintain it’s not their responsibility to identify and manage it, though it’s not really fair to a child to be that disconnected from what reality is for everyone else. St. Pierre does wander into research mode periodically as a means of explaining what she experienced growing up and what she learned about her mother. I understand this, but feel it would read better if it was purely her experience without professional assessments added in, or perhaps held until the end of the book. There always seems to be a place for memoirs of adults that had unstable childhoods because of poverty, discrimination or mental health issues in their parents. But because of this they have to be really well written and almost have a silver lining to them, and this just didn’t stand out in the crowd for me. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

St. Pierre delves into her upbringing/relationship with her mother. While all she wanted was a normal life, she got instead a mother who was constantly looking for the latest spiritual practice to fulfill her life and and frequently moving from place to place as poverty was an ever present handicap. This stood in contrast to the fact that her father ( mother's ex-husband) was financially stable. Her summers with him were filled with comforts and experiences she never had with her mother (except for her dance classes).
As an adult St. Pierre realized her mother suffered from mental illness. While in college she had tried to commit suicide by setting herself on fire and years later a house she was living in was destroyed by fire.
St. Pierre speaks of her mother with an understanding and affection no doubt tempered by evolving maturity as she grew.
What could have been a very depressing book was given hope and understanding by the author's writing skill. More than once I was reminded of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls: super dysfunctional parents and children overcoming great obstacles,