 | The Mistress's Daughter From The Mistress’s Daughter: “Christmas 1992, I go home to Washington, D.C. ‘We have something to tell you,’ my mother says. ‘Someone is looking for you.’ After a lifetime spent in a virtual witness-protection program, I’ve been exposed. I am the mistress’s daughter. My birth mother was young, unmarried, and my father older with a family of his own. When I was born, a lawyer called my adoptive parents and said, ‘Your package has arrived. . . . ’ The fragile narrative, the plot of my life has been abruptly recast. In my dreams, my birth mother is the queen of queens, and she has made a fabulous life for herself, as ruler of the world, except for one missing link—me.” |
 | Reviews / Interviews The Observer The mother and father of all reunions by Hilary Spurling Click Here to Read the Review Chicago Tribune by Jane Ciabattari Finding a lost family--and losing it again. Click Here to Read the Review Washington Post A.M. Homes, Writing in the Shadows of the Family Tree. www.washingtonpost.com Atlanta Journal Constitution review by John Freeman Family drama plays out in unconventional fashion. Click Here to Read the Review SF Chronicle review by N. Heller McAlpin Novelist sears birth parents in memoir. www.sfgate.com NPR/All Things Considered 'Mistress's Daughter' Tells of Unfulfilled Promises. www.npr.org KQED-FM/Forum with Michael Krasny The program talks with author A.M. Homes about her latest novel. www.kqed.org New York Magazine A new memoir from novelist A.M. Homes, who doesn't much care for memoirs. www.nymag.com NPR/Fresh Air: Audio Link A Novelist's Memoir: 'Mistress's Daughter' www.npr.org Macleans / Canada Interview with A.M. Homes www.macleans.ca The Book Forum Interview Psychology, Biology and Family Secrets www.bookforum.com/homes |
 | Q and A A Q& A with A.M. Homes, author of The Mistress’s Daughter. You are best known for writing fiction that takes risks—exploring the psychological worlds of your characters from the inside out; how was writing a memoir different from writing fiction? The memoir was much more difficult. My greatest pleasure as a writer comes from inhabiting people whose experience is different from my own. In fiction one can travel the imagination, exploring the unknown, but in memoir—one essentially picks at a wound, again and again, revisiting the most painful complex moments of your life. Autobiography is limited where fiction is limitless and that’s why I love it. With this book I spent months, years really, trying to find language for what was the most ethereal and biological—almost chemical—emotional experience of my life to date—an experience that on many levels defies language. The degree of difficulty was very high…it was brutal, unbearable at times, which is why it took so long. More |