What We Carry: A Memoir
by Maya Shanbhag Lang
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"How much can you judge another woman's choices? What if that woman is your mother? Maya Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished psychologist who immigrated to the United States from India, completed her residency and earned an American medical degree--all while nurturing young children and keeping a traditional Indian home. Maya grew up with her mother's stories ringing in her ears, motivating her, encouraging her, offering solace when she needed it. But after Maya show more moves across the country and becomes a mother herself, everything changes. Their connection, which had once seemed so invulnerable, begins to fray. Maya's mother, once attentive and capable, becomes a grandmother who is cold and distant. As Maya herself confronts the challenges of motherhood, she realizes that the one person on whom she has always relied cannot be there for her. But she does not understand why. Maya begins to reexamine the stories of her childhood in search of answers to her questions about what is happening to her family. Who is her mother, really? Were the stories she told--about life in India, about what it means to be an immigrant in America, about what it means to be a mother--ever really true? Affecting, raw, and poetic, The Woman in the River is one woman's investigation into her mother's past, the myths she believed, the truths she learned, and her realization that being able to accept both myth and reality is what has finally brought her into adulthood. This is the story of a daughter and her mother, of lies and truths, of being cared by and caring for; it is the story of how we can never really grow up until we fully understand the people who raised us"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Timing is everything. This book was the perfect read for me at this time. It mirrored so much of what I am doing and experiencing, and was in many ways a hopeful encouragement and validation of my feelings. Recommended for those dealing with aging parents and the switch from care receiver to care giver.
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Best Biographies of Notable Women
277 works; 101 members
Author Information
2+ Works 181 Members
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- What We Carry: A Memoir
- Original publication date
- 2020
- People/Characters
- Maya Shanbhag Lang; Noah Lang; Zoe Lang; Dr. Suhas Sankholkar Shanbhag; Ramdas Shanbhag; Manish Shanbhag
- Important places
- Seattle, Washington, USA; White Plains, New York, USA; Hudson Valley, New York, USA
- Epigraph
- Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
-Voltaire
We tell stories to live.
-Joan Didion
You your best thing, Sethe. You are.
-Toni Morrison - Dedication
- For my mother. Both versions.
And for my daughter, who lights the way. - First words
- “Mayudi, I want to tell you a story,” my mother told me.
- Quotations
- It is a cruel feature of memory that trauma retains its vividness while love fades to a blur.
Sometimes it is strangely pleasant to drown oneself, to give into the current and watch the world recede.
The magnitude of the ocean can be overwhelming, but a sandcastle, however fleeting, defies that power. It’s beauty is more poignant for its brevity.
Maybe it doesn’t matter whether our stories are true or false. What matters is that they are ours.
Too much strength can be a weakness. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I will smile and call out to her to say how proud I am.
- Blurbers
- Butler, Katy; Jacob, Mira; Gottlieb, Lori; Benjamin, Chloe; Castellani, Christopher; Schwalbe, Will (show all 7); Leavitt, Caroline
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 109
- Popularity
- 296,382
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.21)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 2
