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A luminous memoir of how the author's involvement in his mother's accidental death reshaped the emotional landscape of his childhood and adult life.
In 1962, at the age of fourteen, Fergus Bordewich's life was shattered as his mother attempted to jump off a runaway horse and fell calamitously under the galloping hooves of the horse Fergus was riding. Crouching beside her in a gathering pool of blood, he convinced himself that she would be fine. But an hour later, in the hospital waiting room, he and his father listened in shock as the doctor told them that she had been dead on arrival. At that moment, he thought to himself, I've killed my mother.
So begins My Mother's Ghost, veteran reporter Fergus Bordewich's anguished attempt to come to terms with the emotional chaos his life was thrown into with his mother's death. For all practical purposes, Fergus's childhood was over. His mother, a fierce, fireball of a woman, had been the dominant figure not just in his family, but, as the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, a galvanizing force in national politics behind Native American activism and tribal rights. She was a woman who traveled the country meeting with tribal chiefs and regularly dined with senators and congressmen. And Fergus had been the son she doted on. In the aftermath of her death, his father slipped further into alcoholism and silence. In the decade that followed, Fergus would follow his father into a life of despair and drink. By the age of twenty-seven, he was close to suicide.
A devastating and beautifully written account of Bordewich's attempt to make peace with his mother's death and rediscover her place in his heart, My Mother's Ghost is a poignant and heartrending memoir that, like Angela's Ashes, is neither easily put down nor readily forgotten.
In 1962, at the age of fourteen, Fergus Bordewich's life was shattered as his mother attempted to jump off a runaway horse and fell calamitously under the galloping hooves of the horse Fergus was riding. Crouching beside her in a gathering pool of blood, he convinced himself that she would be fine. But an hour later, in the hospital waiting room, he and his father listened in shock as the doctor told them that she had been dead on arrival. At that moment, he thought to himself, I've killed my mother.
So begins My Mother's Ghost, veteran reporter Fergus Bordewich's anguished attempt to come to terms with the emotional chaos his life was thrown into with his mother's death. For all practical purposes, Fergus's childhood was over. His mother, a fierce, fireball of a woman, had been the dominant figure not just in his family, but, as the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, a galvanizing force in national politics behind Native American activism and tribal rights. She was a woman who traveled the country meeting with tribal chiefs and regularly dined with senators and congressmen. And Fergus had been the son she doted on. In the aftermath of her death, his father slipped further into alcoholism and silence. In the decade that followed, Fergus would follow his father into a life of despair and drink. By the age of twenty-seven, he was close to suicide.
A devastating and beautifully written account of Bordewich's attempt to make peace with his mother's death and rediscover her place in his heart, My Mother's Ghost is a poignant and heartrending memoir that, like Angela's Ashes, is neither easily put down nor readily forgotten.
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From the Back Cover:
"This is so straightforward, without pretension, so full of quiet intelligence and discernment--compassion too. [Fergus Bordewich] makes the past live, and his present too. As a portrayal in poetry--his poetry of prose--I found myself comparing it most to poet Philip Laskin's prose masterpiece A Girl in Winter." John Bayley, author of Elegy for Iris
"A brave, beautiful, fascinating book; wise and harrowing, and as lucid a statement of the power and complexity of the past as ever I've read."--Richard F. Snow, Editor, American Heritage
"An emotional journey into the heart of a man haunted by his mother's death--and his own role on that tragic day. Fergus Bordewich has written a moving account of love, guilt, death, and finally, an exoneration with consequences. This is an important book."
-James Welch, author of Heartsong of Charging Elk
"My Mother's Ghost is a stunning work. It is a deeply American, beautifully written, morally compelling memoir, the images of death and transfiguration in the tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne."
--James Chace, author of What We Had and a biography of Dean Acheson
"An extraordinary memoir, moving and entirely believable in every respect."
--Doris Grumbach, author of The Missing Person and The Pleasure of Their Company
"An extraordinary book about three extraordinary lives, the author's and his mother's two lives--one during her natural existence, the other in his memory. Without a trace of sentimentality, Bordewich holds us with this moving account of his own worldwide adventures and of a woman so decent and human, so compassionate and brave, that her steady presence in his mind has been both a strength and a challenge."
--Stanley Kauffmann, film critic
About the Author:
"A brave, beautiful, fascinating book; wise and harrowing, and as lucid a statement of the power and complexity of the past as ever I've read."--Richard F. Snow, Editor, American Heritage
"An emotional journey into the heart of a man haunted by his mother's death--and his own role on that tragic day. Fergus Bordewich has written a moving account of love, guilt, death, and finally, an exoneration with consequences. This is an important book."
-James Welch, author of Heartsong of Charging Elk
"My Mother's Ghost is a stunning work. It is a deeply American, beautifully written, morally compelling memoir, the images of death and transfiguration in the tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne."
--James Chace, author of What We Had and a biography of Dean Acheson
"An extraordinary memoir, moving and entirely believable in every respect."
--Doris Grumbach, author of The Missing Person and The Pleasure of Their Company
"An extraordinary book about three extraordinary lives, the author's and his mother's two lives--one during her natural existence, the other in his memory. Without a trace of sentimentality, Bordewich holds us with this moving account of his own worldwide adventures and of a woman so decent and human, so compassionate and brave, that her steady presence in his mind has been both a strength and a challenge."
--Stanley Kauffmann, film critic
FERGUS M. BORDEWICH is the author of the critically acclaimed books Killing the White Man's Indian and Cathay: A Journey in Search of Old China, and was the general editor of Children of the Dragon, an anthology of eyewitness accounts of the Tiananmen Square massacre. His articles have appeared in many national publications, including American Heritage, Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, Reader's Digest, and others. He lives with his family in New York's Hudson Valley.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0385491298
- ISBN 13 9780385491297
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages336
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