The bond between mothers and daughters is legendary for its sheer endurance. This Is Your Mother, a debut memoir by the supremely talented Erika J. Simpson, is an eloquent reminder that there are many complicated dimensions to that intimate connection, some tender, some funny, some fraught with pain. Simpson urgently invites the reader to follow daughter and mother from Simpson’s turbulent childhood in Atlanta, to a coming of age that both separates and further entangles them and finally to the inevitable, heartrending conclusion of their relationship.
Simpson was raised by Sallie, her larger than life, highly educated, often unemployed, Bible-toting single mother. Sallie’s undiagnosed bipolar disorder disrupted their everyday existence with hunger, evictions, repossessions and arrests. Yet seen through her child’s eyes, Sallie also had magic: She once created a Christmas tree out of green construction paper taped to a wall, decorated with pine cones. She inspired her children and escaped many a jam—like steep, unpayable taxi fares—by testifying, spontaneously sharing her Bible. Sometimes it even worked. Simpson was paying attention, and the writer propels their story with pseudo Bible quotes, as in “Book of Sallie Carol 1:2: The only things that matter, and the order of their importance, are food and rent.”
Simpson’s growing-up years bridged the 21st century, and she adeptly scatters random pop culture notes throughout her memoir like artifacts. These are perhaps a bit jarring until you begin to understand that the randomness mimics Simpson’s life with her mother, spontaneously pivoting from one crisis to another like, she writes, “camera shutter clicks.” Here was Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the 1990s, eager to save the world just as the teenage Simpson became aware of how badly hers needed help. She was drawn to Jonathan Frakes, host of a favorite television series Beyond Belief, who warned: “We live in a world where the real and the unreal live side by side.”
Along with Sallie’s many eccentricities, Simpson chooses to remember her mother’s steadfast beliefs in education, hope and the power of God’s love. Battles with brain and breast cancer, and, finally, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, didn’t stop Sallie from sending her two daughters to college—and then begging them for money she knew they didn’t have to save her from another arrest or eviction. Whenever the phone rang, Simpson had to decide whether to answer. This Is Your Mother is another kind of answer, honoring what became their eternal, unbreakable bond.