The Women Who Shape Us

Mothers and their proxies tend to take on the bulk of directing a child’s life, which can lead to fraught relationships, atypical life lessons, and disappointment in the unexpected direction their child pursues. In Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn, Barbara Rosenberg reflects on her life and failed guidance of her gender-nonconforming child, who is taking care of her in an opioid-filled high on her deathbed. In Sarah Blakley-Cartwright’s Heavy Cream, Gerry’s upbringing is filled with lessons not found in textbooks and dictated by the whims of a mentally unwell mother who suddenly abandons her in the care of three women navigating life in a very different way. In Avigayl Sharp’s Offseason, the unnamed narrator finds herself back at her parents’ house during a school break, reflecting on her unstable relationship with her mother and whether her memory of her is reliable. Moderated by Fanta Diallo, Senior Publicist at W.W. Norton and Company.