Vigdis Hjorth, Is Mother Dead

Rare that I take a photo of three different pages to return to. This book was brilliant, acutely well observed, raw and daringly complex. 

Is Mother Dead is an obsessive study of a daughter's efforts to comprehend why she is the way she is and where she comes from - how understanding and forgiving one's mother (for her rage and her suffering) seems crucial to understanding and accepting oneself, and what a daughter is to do if she not only does not have the privilege of having her questions answered and of reciprocated desire for contact, but also must contend with her mother's unequivocal rejection. 

Hjorth explores protagonist Johanna's reckoning of her mother's refusal of conversation and disinterest in collective healing and the ways in which Johanna resists this, inventing her mother in her mind, tracing her daily steps and routine, supposing her thoughts, feelings and hurt until this imagined mother becomes insufficient and unsatisfying. Instead, Johanna begins to stalk her mother's movements, eroding the boundaries and privacy long established to keep their lives separate.