Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir

This provocative, poignant memoir of a daughterwhose mother left her behind by choice begs the question: Are we destined tomake the same mistakes as our parents?
One summer, Melissa Cistaro's mother drove offwithout explanation. Devastated, Melissa and her brothers were left to pick upthe pieces, always tormented by the thought: Why did their mother abandon them?
Thirty-five years later, with children of her own,Melissa finds herself in Olympia, Washington, as her mother is dying. Afterdecades of hiding her painful memories, she has just days to find out whathappened that summer and confront the fear she could do the same to her kids.But Melissa never expects to stumble across a cache of letters her mother wroteto her but never sent-letters that could hold the answers she seeks.
Haunting yet ultimately uplifting, Pieces of My Mother chronicles onewoman's quest to discover what drives a mother to walk away from the childrenshe loves. Alternating between Melissa's tumultuous coming-of-age and hermother's final days, this captivating memoir reveals how our parents' choicesimpact our own and how we can survive those to forge our own paths.