All My Mother’s Lovers : A Novel
336 pages | Paperback
Now in paperback! As seen in…
Electric Literature, O Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Buzzfeed, Harper’s Bazaar, The Millions, The Rumpus, LGBTQ Reads, Lit Hub, BookRiot, Bitch, NewNowNext, Cosmopolitan, Salon, Lambda
All My Mother’s Lovers is a sweeping account of grief and growth, generational divides and assumptions, and a journey toward understanding not only how little we truly know our parents, but how trying to know them can lead us to know ourselves. When Maggie Kraus’s mother Iris dies, Maggie discovers, along with Iris’s will, five sealed envelopes, addressed to five mysterious men—all of whom are strangers to Maggie and her brother Ariel.
In an effort to run from her own grief and discover the truth about Iris, Maggie embarks on a road trip to hand-deliver the letters and find out who these men are and what they meant to her mother. What ensues is Maggie’s process of coming to terms with a new understanding of monogamy (and its alternatives), a new appreciation for family, and the realization that her mother was not only a mother, but a woman, a person, with desires and complexities Maggie never recognized.