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Article: Book World; A Mother Only a Mother Can Love
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 20, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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A MOTHER'S LOVE
By Mary Morris
Doubleday. 287 pp. $17.50
"Before she left, my mother used to practice her leaving on me,"
notes Ivy Slovak, who becomes a mother and practices staying, who has
an out-of-wedlock child in order to rewrite the history of motherhood
she knows.
The mother who disappears is the one with the most enduring grip
on her child. Ivy has struggled in that stranglehold since she was 7
years old and her mother, Jessica Hope, left her in the dust of a
Nevada trailer camp and the care of a mystified, blackjack-dealing
father.
The adult Ivy of Mary Morris's new novel, "A Mother's Love," is
constantly scanning a ghostly horizon. That woman in the parking lot,
is that her ...