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68
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
39/100Critics
96/100Scholars
Author:
Courtney Zoffness
Publisher:
McSweeney's
Date:
March 2, 2021
What role does a mother play in raising thoughtful, generous children? In her literary debut, internationally award-winning writer Courtney Zoffness considers what we inherit from generations past--biologically, culturally, spiritually--and what we pass on to our children. Where is the line between privacy and secrecy? How do the stories we tell inform who we become?
What The Reviewers Say
... beyond simple conclusions about mother/child relationships, Zoffness’s work allows us a window into the experience of how we both inherit and pass on different parts of ourselves. She explores one son’s need for power and the potential traps of interpretation she falls into when trying to see his role-playing through adult eyes. Through explication of the history she shares with her mother, she examines the guarded nature of artists, and how sharing her mom’s creative traits means that she never really gets let into her mother’s world. Zoffness asks important questions about her body in particular — what it holds, how it is able to bring life into the world, and how she can create art with it.
... a powerful exploration of a range of experiences that many women face viewed through a Jewish lens.
Throughout her debut essay collection, Spilt Milk, Zoffness applies thoughtful analysis to everyday situations.
Fears, loves, doubts, and desires garner fuller significance through highly self-aware, highly intricate modes of retrospection and introspection. With heart and skill, Zoffness is also able to extend the topic of conversation well beyond the domestic, framing her own daily struggles with global concerns. Even amidst worldwide instability, each essay steadfastly relies upon a kind of paradoxical bedrock of uncertainty, honesty, and vulnerability.
