This very short but very powerful memoir is a work that any mother will be able to relate to. It’s a reflective and confessional autobiographical meditation on the author’s time as a mother, the decisions and choices she made, the mistakes, the eternal conflict between her own selfhood and the demands of her children. I found it compulsive reading. Lyrically written, it’s not a conventional memoir by any means but an interior monologue on what it’s like to be a mother, a good one or a bad one, or maybe just a good enough one.

Loved this, devoured it.

"I laugh it off. I like it when my sons revolt."

If she's a bad mother, we'd all do well to have one! I adored the writing and every character within. Herein lies the struggles of trying to be the right kind of mother and the hunger to remain a person of one's own too. I don't feel it's always easy for a mother to describe the hungers that still exist, as if once a you become a mother you are dead from the neck down. It is insight into how a mother's every move affects her children's existence and the grief we give ourselves over every mistake! How we punish ourselves, even though everyone else already unfairly does too.

"We don't see each other, we do't hear each other, we don't touch each other. We are not together.
I am the amputated mother.
How to prevent the good in one's existence from being snuffed out by the contrary winds of the day-to-day?
I fill my days with study and work.
I flirt.
A man cheers me up.
I reproach myself for it."

The Bad Mother is like having free license to explore a very intimate diary. I felt such empathy as she longed for her children during divorce. "I write to my children- does he give them my letters?-...

Longing to know who her children's friends are, knowing her little one has started reading, are they happy or sad (all this in a time before computers, etc.) oh the terrible ache of amputation from one's own children indeed. And all her lawyer can advise is 'Patience.'
I giggled at the some of the appalling memories being asked of her now elderly son. "I am told that he had become a difficult child,tending to wildness, that is was all because of me, his vagabond mother who'd abandoned him, that he stole money from his grandmother's wallet, ate hidden chocolates, put cockroaches in the beds and pantry, didn't wash his ears, and bit the fingers of the 'dirty old' grandmother if she insisted he do so."
What is not to love about this book?
It's been a while since a book makes me laugh as much as I ache, and for the 'bad mother' as much as for her children. Even the short chapters that have quick conversations are fully loaded and there is never a lack in storytelling. I think I went highlight crazy on my kindle arc. I am in love with this family, Martin and his little schemes tickled me (I was reminded so much of my father's stories of his childhood antics in Hungary, not the criminal side of it- ha ha- but certainly his inventiveness). Her reactions to her 'little criminal son' were so endearing and yet she does sometimes dispense of her child for her selfish needs. Is it any shock Martin is indeed such a strong outspoken child with such a mother?
It is a fast read but don't think that means it's not a filling one. I can't wait to see what my fellow readers feel about this. It's a keeper!

Written in spare prose bordering on poetry, this autobiographical work explores the meaning of motherhood and all its contradictions. Marguerite is fearless in exposing her flawed self that is almost shocking in its stark delivery. While it's a short book, Andersen doesn't waste a word managing to evoke the most vivid portrayal of a mother's relationship with her children throughout their lives.