How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes) - Experimental Stategy

I've been pretty excited to read this one since I saw the title in the Table of Contents. Stories about mothers always intrigue me because I have a... I'll say interesting... relationship with my mother. Though the story wasn't what I expected it to be, all-in-all it didn't disappoint.

The way she wrote it - backwards - was pretty brilliant. It provided an intrigue to the story that wouldn't have been quite there if she'd written it NOT backwards. For instance, when she says that she is pregnant again it makes us wonder when she was pregnant before. She goes on to say that she is pregnant again - again. We wonder throughout how old the speaker is. She gets continually younger as the story goes on, but as we had no given age to start with, we have no idea how young she is getting until she begins to speak of early childhood.

We wonder what is going on with the mother and what has happened to her. We watch the mother get younger along with her daughter and we are eventually enlightened. Sometimes there are many things that go on in a year. Other times there isn't much. For instance, in 1970 she is pregnant again and gets her hair cut short. These are the things that were noteworthy in that year. In 1954 she only shoplifts a cashmere sweater. In 1956 she only tells her mother about the books she reading in college. Some years are so unworthy of note, apparently, that they are just skipped entirely.

I enjoyed the story immensely. The way it was written, for me, really made the entire story.