Jill Talbot

Talbot writes, "Fiction and history are neighbors. The stories we tell about our own histories might as well be fiction--for what we tell, what we don't." This book is about being left and then leaving--via a Ford Escape and heartbreak and relocations and glasses of wine. It is about the ways a woman navigates and makes space in her own life for creation, and above all this book is about the varied and shifting stories we tell ourselves. I always find the urgency and specificity of Jill show more Talbot's writing transfixing, and this book is no exception. Talbot's narration shifts between third and first person, crossing state lines and swirling around the pairing of a mother and a daughter to create a specific and compelling portrait of single motherhood without child support--a huge challenge that Talbot meets gamely. The essays here play with form and point of view, and come as a wine list, a syllabus, a court transcript, and all dazzle with their intensity. show less

Sorry but this book did nothing for me. I wanted to learn more about a woman's experience with alcoholism but I just got her ramblings on sexual addiction mostly.