Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir

"Weeks after I read the last gorgeous page of Pieces of My Mother, I still find myself thinking about Melissa Cistaro and her complex, maddening and fascinating mother. What caused this woman to walk out of her house one afternoon, leaving the children she loved behind? As Melissa puts the pieces together we are treated to an outstanding memoir written with tenderness, wit and depth. " ― Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage, San Francisco, CA "Melissa’s book is both a tough and tender look at parenting where the getting of wisdom comes in unexpected moments and grace prevails in its expression." ― Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield’s Books (Sebastopol, CA) "For the reader who loves a book with a bit of mystery and a ton of emotion, "Pieces of My Mother" by Melissa Cistaro will fill that bill. When she was just a child, Cistaro’s mother got into a car and drove away ― for good. What made her do that? The answer, which took years to solve, is in this amazing book. " ― Bookworm Sez "Melissa Cistaro’s Pieces of My Mother is a moving story...poetic language is one of many stunning elements of this book. " ― Red Savina Review "This is an astonishing book, full of heartbreak and love and hard-won wisdom. Melissa Cistaro writes beautifully not just about her search for the mother who abandoned her, but about the myriad ways parents and children don’t and do connect. Told in vivid scenes and through the texts of letters her mother never sent, Cistaro chronicles a journey that goes way past forgiveness to true understanding." ― Will Schwalbe, bestselling author of The End Of Your Life Book Club "Sometimes we are defined as much by the person who is missing as the person who is there. Melissa Cistaro has a story to tell and one you don’t hear every day. I was deeply moved from word one." ― Kelly Corrigan, bestselling memoirist of The Middle Place, Lift, and Glitter & Glue "Melissa Cistaro’s imagery is startling and vivid, her story brutally honest and devoid of judgment. Pieces of My Mother is a story that lingers in the heart long after the last page is turned." ― Hope Edelman, bestselling author of Motherless Daughters and The Possibility of Everything "Full of hope, regret and lessons learned, Pieces of My Mother is a unique and compelling look at how profoundly mothers affect our lives. Whether absent or hauntingly close, longing for a mother can force a child into maturity beyond her years, and garner her with a lifetime of longing. This book is as lyrical as it is honest, as humorous as it is heartbreaking." ― Monica Holloway, bestselling author of Cowboy & Wills and Driving with Dead People "A deeply moving complex, honest portrayal of family, of motherhood, yet uplifting and captivating; alternating between Melissa and her mother, we see firsthand how a parent’s choices impact their children’s lives for generations to come with emotional devastation. " ― JDC Must Read Books "A poignant exploration of choices and their reverberations." ― Booklist "A poignant story of a daughter who was left behind as a child..." ― The News-Gazette "Told in flawless and honest prose, Pieces of My Mother begs to question whether we are destined to repeat our parents’ mistakes, or whether we can embrace the good pieces while casting out the bad." ― Urban Moms "The result is a nonlinear and often poetic exploration of wounded memories, laced with meditations on motherhood. While this builds into no tidy reckoning between mother and daughter, the letters offer Cistaro closure―they bring her closer to the woman who’s leaving her one final time." ― Michigan Quarterly Review "Melissa’s writing style is beautiful, well executed. I think it is what holds the entire story together. She shows us what happened and how hard it was to grow up without a mother and all her fears on parenting her own children but also, a hope for a better future, that sense of hope it was always present for me in the book." ― Costa Rican Writer "An honest and affecting story of the many complexities involved with family relationships." ― Kirkus Reviews "For the reader who loves a book with a bit of mystery and a ton of emotion, "Pieces of My Mother" by Melissa Cistaro will fill that bill. When she was just a child, Cistaro’s mother got into a car and drove away – for good. What made her do that? The answer, which took years to solve, is in this amazing book." ― Q Salt Lake "At three, Cistaro watched her mother sob in the driver's seat of her car through the window in her bedroom. Minutes later, her mother drove off, removing herself from the traditional role. Thirty six years later, Cistaro leaves her family on Christmas Day to sit by her mother's bedside as she succumbs to cirrhosis. Challenged to piece together a woman she barely knows, Cistaro takes the reader into her world, her story. Weaving between Now and Then, Cistaro tells of life with and without her mother. And without her." ― April Gosling, Boulder Bookstore (Boulder, CO) "Truly wonderful. Not your typical dysfunctional family memoir. I thought the structure - alternating scenes of her dyeing mother with the past was brilliant." ― Suzy Staubach, U Conn Co-op (Storrs, CT) "Filled with moments of poignancy and grace, Melissa Cistaro's beautiful book lands on a gorgeous note of redemption. I loved it." ― Lolly Winston, bestselling author of Good Grief and Happiness Sold Separately " Pieces of My Mother is part memoir, part detective story, and throughout its pages riveting to read… A brave and impressive debut." ― Tom Barbash, critically acclaimed author of Stay Up With Me and the New York Times bestseller On Top of the World " Pieces of My Mother is about learning to forgive even when you don’t fully understand the decisions that were made. It’s also about learning to forgive yourself and know that the decisions people make are their own. I would highly recommend this book for those of you that love a good memoir." ― Stories Unfolded "Heartbreaking in its simplicity, Pieces of My Mother is Melissa Cistaro’s attempt to shed some much needed light on her dark past...a tentative, poignant, painful exploration that welcomes complexity, forgiveness, and empathy. " ― Sahar’s Reviews "Melissa Cistaro's luminous memoir is full of heart, wisdom and suspense…a page turner, impossible to put down. It's also filled with the kind of writing that makes you catch your breath in awe." ― Barbara Abercrombie, author of A Year of Writing Dangerously "Melissa Cistaro has written a vivid and unforgettable first memoir. She writes with true compassion, exposing the delicate, complicated bond between mothers and daughters." ― New York Times Bestselling author Ayelet Waldman "Melissa Cistaro has written the perfect memoir. I love this book." ― Abigail Thomas, bestselling author of A Three Dog Life, Safekeeping, and What Comes Next and How to Like It "In an age where the pressure to be the perfect parent is beyond fierce, enter Melissa Cistaro with a clear-eyed look at a real family. It's about how it is to be a mother and a daughter in the imperfect world we all actually live in. A heartbreaking and heart affirming first book." ― Peter Orner, author of Last Car Over Sagamore Bridge, Love And Shame and Love And Esther Stories "Detailed memories, honest reflection, and true insights into her mother's life combine in this spell-binding memoir of what it means to be a loving mother and a good daughter." ― Chery McKeon, Manager, Book Passage "I read this book in one uninterrupted, lump-in-the-throat sitting. Equal parts memoir and emotional whodunnit, Pieces of My Mother is a beautiful, wrenching story, meticulously crafted. Cistaro understands all too well the fallibility of memory, the desire to be a flawless mother and the fear of having inherited the gene for the opposite." ― Katie Hafner, author of Mother Daughter Me "Truly wonderful. Not your typical dysfunctional family memoir. I thought the structure - alternating scenes of her dying mother with the past was brilliant." ― Suzy Staubach, University of Connecticut Co-operative *Indie Next Nomination* "Brutally and beautifully honest, Pieces of My Mother chronicles the intertwined, soul-wrenching journey of a mother and her daughter in search of individual, and shared, peace." ― Chicago Book Review "Moving, beautifully written and at times very profound. " ― Lissa’s Book Reviews "Such an emotional read that will leave you vulnerable and a longing for the tender hearts of children." ― Sunday Gatherings Melissa Cistaro is a bookseller and the events coordinator at Book Passage, the legendary San Francisco Bay Area independent bookstore, where she has hosted more than 200 authors. A writer and mother of two, she has been interviewed on a number of radio shows and has been published in numerous literary journals including the New Ohio Review, Anderbo.com, and Brevity as well as in two anthologies alongside Anne Lamott, Jane Smiley, and other writers. Melissa graduated with honors from UCLA and continued her education with the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She has participated in the Tin House Writer’s Workshop in Portland and The Writer’s Studio in Los Angeles. She lives in San Francisco. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. THEN a house underwater Bun-Bun notices my mom outside before I do. He tells me about it. We watch her walk toward her car. She's wearing her summer dress that is the color of ripe avocados. Her brown purse, slung over her shoulder, is as fat as the raccoon that crawls into our garbage cans late at night, and she has an armful of clothes hooked into her elbow. Her favorite coat drops onto the pavement. It doesn't look like a coat the way it crumples up on the ground. I know that coat so well, every bit of tan, brown, yellow, and red―every small wooden button. So many times I have traced the curling patterns and small rows of dots with my fingertip, and my mom always reminds me that the pattern is called "paisley." She turns around, picks up her favorite paisley coat, and tosses it on top of the pile of clothes she's already put in the backseat of her blue car, then slams the car door shut. As she turns around to look back at the house, I have Bun-Bun do a little wave and a dance as I duck below the window in my room. She'll think Bun-Bun has really come to life. His tan head and floppy ears are made of real rabbit fur that only recently began to shed around his green eyes and on the tips of his ears. I know how to make him look like he's hopping through a field. I lift my eyes just above the ledge. My mom is standing next to the car looking down at her feet. I am supposed to be taking a nap, but it's too hot and I don't like to sleep. During nap time my whole room comes to life and anything can happen. Stuffed animals talk to each other, fairies fly out of the wall sockets, and plastic horses gallop across the hardwood floor. My brother told me that when I'm five like him, I won't have to stay in my room during nap time. For days now the air has been like fire, so hot that it ripples above the concrete and makes things outside look like they are underwater. It is the kind of heat that has made our next-door neighbor's dogs hide underneath our house where it's cool and dusty. Mr. Bird, who owns the dogs, came over and told us this just yesterday. "Dogs know what to do with themselves when California heats up like this, but not people," he said. "It's the kind of heat that could cause some folks to snap." And when he said that word, "snap," he took the toothpick out of his teeth and broke it in two. Then he laughed like he thought he was clever. Later, I saw his broken toothpick on our porch and kicked it into the dead grass where it got lost in all the yellow. I open my bedroom door and peer into the living room. My brother Eden is asleep on the couch with a box of Lucky Charms wedged underneath his arm. The TV is on and I watch for a moment as Underdog flies across the gray screen, and I remember that my brother Jamie isn't here. He's almost six and the oldest. He left the house earlier to go swimming in his friend Bobby Winston's pool. My mom was mad when Mrs. Winston showed up early to grab Jamie for swimming. She told Mrs. Winston that she only had two cigarettes left and didn't want to go out to the store in the heat. When Mom is out of cigarettes, she counts on Jamie to be here with Eden and me so she can run down to the corner market. If she has to wait too long to get them, the house begins to swell with noise―the clap of cupboards opening and closing, the crack of the ice-cube tray slamming against the counter, and her voice rising over ours like a mockingbird. I wish that Mrs. Winston had offered to lend her some cigarettes or get her some, but she didn't. She just pointed to her hairdo, which she called a "beehive," and said, "This darn heat is just killing me and my hair too." After Mrs. Winston left, my mom said she thought that hairstyle looked "goddamn ridiculous." I picked up the box of cigarettes lying on the table and carried it to my mom. She tapped the last two out of the package. Then we sat side by side on the plaid couch as she smoked each of them. Out of her red shiny lips came rings of smoke like little white doughnuts floating through the air. I reached up and stuck my finger through the center of one. She pulled my arm away and whispered, "No, just watch." She said she liked it when the rings began to lose their shape and stretch out. She said they were beautiful the way they disappeared. I didn't like it when they went away. I preferred it when they first came out of her red lips and looked like powdered doughnuts. "Make more," I said. And she did, like magic, over and over. With my brother Eden asleep and Underdog ducking back into a telephone booth, I sneak past them and into the kitchen where our old fan is clunking around in circles, but no cool air is coming out. On the counter there is a pitcher of sticky orange Kool-Aid with three black flies floating on the surface. The sight of the soggy flies makes me uneasy, and in an instant, the heat feels like it will swallow me. I want my dad to come home from work. I race back to the window in my room to see if my mom is coming back in. She is standing in the same place. I want to tell her that it is too hot out there for her, that she could melt. But she's stuck out there, it seems, and I'm stuck in here. I need her to come back in the house. I need her to tell me that nap time is over and that tonight we will go to Fosters Freeze where the ice cream races out of a noisy machine and into perfect swirls of vanilla and chocolate. Instead, she opens the car door and gets in. I lay my hand against my bedroom window. The glass is warm and it feels like I can almost reach her. I know this is not a trip to get cigarettes. I want to yell out to her: "Please don't leave..." I am trying to say it. But nothing comes out. I just watch her without blinking once. Bun-Bun and I both have stupid plastic eyes and sewed-on mouths. Inside of us there is nothing but sawdust. Then I see her mouth break open wide like a fish gasping for air. She is crying inside her car. The air wobbles above the concrete. Everything is underwater. It crosses my mind that I could swim to her if I knew how. Jamie does; he would swim to her if he were here. I press my forehead against the glass and swallow every word I know. Underwater, everything is quiet and full of ripples. My mom is a mermaid as she swims away from me, her thick hair waving like strands of long seaweed. I don't hear the sound of the car engine starting up, but I watch as my mom backs up and drives away in her baby-blue Dodge Dart. x95 x95 x95 Jamie says he was bad and that's why Mom left. Eden cries the most and spends extra time in the backyard looking for gypsy moths and black crickets to kill. I collect small boxes from around the house―empty Band-Aid tins, Lipton Tea containers, and Lucky Strike matchboxes. They are tiny suitcases that I can hide things in. Anything I want: buttons, bad thoughts, daisy petals, and even the shiny sequins that fall off my Christmas stocking. I put these small boxes just beneath my windowsill, all lined up and in order, and keep them there so that I can show them to my mom when she comes back. Our dad tells us she's taking "a break" from us for a while but he doesn't like to talk about it. Jamie says maybe we will see her when the weather cools down. Or maybe she will come if one of us has a birthday. I keep hoping it is all a mistake. When I hear laughing late at night outside our house, I stay awake in case it is her coming back. And sometimes I hear the radio next door shouting out songs she would sing along to. I can feel her swaying me in her arms and singing "Good-bye, Ruby Tuesday." I am waiting for her to come bolting through the front door and never stop hugging us again. A sitter, who is not our mom, comes to live at our house so our dad can go back to work. And when that sitter gets tired of us, a new one arrives. Everyone says I am too young to remember what's happened and that children my age simply don't remember the details. I can't blame them for saying that. But I am as quiet as a cat, watching everyone and everything. Read more