Know the Mother (Made in Michigan Writers Series)

Desiree Cooper's KNOW THE MOTHER is the second 'flash fiction' collection that I've read, the first one being Katey Schultz's excellent FLASHES OF WAR. While the Schultz collection was all about the current wars and their far-reaching and long-lasting effects, Cooper's stories are about the challenges, heartbreaks, joys and limitations of being a woman in modern society, whether in the role of daughter, mother or grandmother. The role of devoted - dutiful? - daughter is examined in "Feeding the Lions," in which an adult daughter cares for her failing father, a blind Vietnam veteran and widower who mistakenly calls her by her deceased mother's name, 'Quyen.' The complex bi-racial elements of the story are succinctly stated in just a few show more lines -

"I am a cocktail of genes - my mother's hair, black as bean paste, but as unruly and thick as my father's. My teak skin is not like his skin, which is Southern-gravy brown. If it weren't for his cloudy eyes, you'd never guess he had survived both Selma and Saigon."

In "Reporting for Duty, 1959" (at several pages, not 'flash fiction'), a black Air Force sergeant and his family, en route to their next duty station, are turned away from a hotel in the South. "Home for the Holidays" gives us a young black family menaced by two drunken white men trying to run them off an icy road in western Maryland. "Nocturne" traces the life of a woman in the various losses she has incurred from childhood forward - the family dog, a Chopin piano competition, her virginity, two miscarriages, a husband through divorce and a breast to cancer. "Leftovers" again gives us the sorrow of breast cancer. "Open Sky" and "Requiem for a Dress" both give insight into the far end of life in their deft portraits of much older women.

There is not a bad story in this book. Every one has been polished down to its gem-like essence. I first opened the book to a story near the middle, "Ceiling." It is a half-page parable on that "glass ceiling," as well as the sexism - and racism - still encountered in the good ol' boy practice of law. In it a young pregnant black attorney is forced to ask for maternity leave from an uncaring boss whose "Pipe smoke curled to the ceiling - a halo of power." She is further demeaned by his question - "If you wanted to have babies ... why did you go to law school?" Perhaps a small masterpiece of the flash fiction genre, "Ceiling" will remain a particular favorite of mine from Cooper's collection.

Ms. Cooper is an accomplished writer. KNOW THE MOTHER is a small book, but it is a powerful one. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

Many topics are explored, including the pressures and biases that affect our society - race, gender, and inequality, but in flash fiction.