All My Mother's Lovers

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Masad’s impressive novel delves into varieties of that strange magic, love, and of its expansive, life-shaping possibilities. All My Mother’s Lovers is a debut of rare and vital generosity.” —R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries This probing, beautiful debut novel by Ilana Masad is an intimate meditation on grief, identity, love, and inheritance. . . . [A] daughter’s journey to realizing her mother was also a woman, and a tender tribute to the power of forgiveness, understanding, and hope.” — Refinery 29

The novel offers readers a nuanced, fully realized protagonist struggling to come to terms with death, her transition to adulthood, and the leap of faith required to let people in.”— Lambda Literary Unfolding over the course of nine days, and written with enormous heart, All My Mother’s Lovers is a meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties, grief, and generational divides, as well as a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity. She’s counting cards, you idiots,” Harold boomed suddenly, and Iris laughed. He heard her—he was blessed with better hearing than Iris’s own which was beginning to fail, a fact he relentlessly teased her about, since he was two decades her senior. When he turned to look at her, his face, normally a distinguished craggy mask, spread wide with his smile, causing his cheeks to further wrinkle up towards his eyes even while his jaw seemed to smooth out. Iris was herself fairly lined but she’d been watching the people here since she began visiting, fascinated by the many ways skin could weather the years. “Well, look who it is!” Harold called out.All My Mothers is a captivating and heartening view of motherhood and what it means to be a mother, both within its traditional parameters, and in all its unconventional but beautiful ways. More than that, though, it is a story of unwavering female friendship throughout Eva’s life, starting from age four and on into her twenties and thirties. This book was recommended to me by a very good friend of mine and I have to admit I had my prejudices. A novel about various types of mothers? A coming-of-age story about an ordinary Spanish woman? Normally, not my cup of tea. However, this book is painfully beautiful and incomprehensibly undervalued. Let me tell you why⬇️ MASAD: I think I did find it difficult, just on a technical level. Like, how do I write about it without making it boring? It was difficult for me to figure out how to do it in a way that was doing something for my character, for the story, for the moment that I was in, but I felt like it was necessary to include because it’s a contemporary novel. It feels false to me to not deal with the mundanities of this reality, especially because I was focusing on generational divides. I think part of it probably came from getting really annoyed at the fact that I was seeing so many arguments between Millennials and Boomers. As a Millennial who is very close to her Boomer mother, I feel like there’s a lot of ways in which we willfully misunderstand each other, generationally. This is not a critique of either generation in any way. All old people were young once. We don’t like to talk about that somehow. Ilana Masad has crafted a brilliant novel about understanding and forgiveness. . . . All My Mother’s Loversis a powerful debut that signals a new voice in fiction who can interweave multiple threads through a single protagonist.” — Bitch

Now, now, be nice,” Iris said as she helped Harold up. He leaned on her, the exertion of rising showing in his pained face. “Where’s your walker?” Masad is deft and incisive about the sometimes-fraught nature of mother-daughter relationships, around which loaded subtext can seem to twist and twine like Christmas lights. And she affectingly plumbs the mind-bending hugeness that is losing a parent."— The Washington Post These vignettes from the distant past also help to accomplish what is arguably Masad’s largest triumph: superb and cohesive character development. The novel is nearly free of “extras” and bit characters; each person Maggie knows or encounters is fully rounded and given an identity full of complexity. This is particularly important considering Masad presents an inclusive and intersectional cast across race, class, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation. The novel’s plot presents many opportunities for flat and convenient character work, but, here again, the author navigates around easy traps and pitfalls.Wow 👏🏻 what an incredible book this is!! I just wish I hadn’t left it so long to read. It was a brilliant book. I loved how the author weaved the story, you grow into it as Eva grows up. We sometimes see where the journey is going, and sometimes we don't, but Eva is a truthful narrator to both herself and her subjects. She is at times, not terribly likeable, but she is believable and three dimensional. Electric Literature’s "Most Anticipated Debuts of Early 2020" • O Magazine’s "31 LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape in 2020" • Publisher Weekly’s "Spring 2020 Literary Fiction Announcements" • Buzzfeed's "Most Highly Anticipated Books Of 2020" • The Millions's "Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half 2020 Book Preview" • The Rumpus's "What to Read When 2020 is Just Around the Corner" • LGBTQ Reads's "2020 LGBTQAP Adult Fiction Preview: January-June" • Lit Hub’s "Most Anticipated Books of 2020" • BookRiot’s " Must-Read Debut Novels of 2020" • Bitch’s "27 Novels Feminists Should Read in 2020" • Harper’s Bazaar's "14 LGBTQ+ Books to Look For in 2020" • NewNowNext’s "11 Queer Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Spring" • Cosmopolitan's "12 Books You'll Be Dying to Read This Summer" • Salon’s "The Best and Boldest New Must-Read Books for May" • Lambda Literary’s “Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books of May 2020” • The Rumpus "What to Read When You Want to Celebrate Mothers" Unfolding over the course of nine days, and written with enormous heart, All My Mother's Lovers is a meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties, grief, and generational divides, as well as a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity.

Stop arrêtez tout ! Des fois je lis un livre et je *sais* que je ne lirais pas mieux avant un long moment. C’est le cas avec All My Mothers. J’ai mis 5 étoiles mais en vrai je veux en mettre 6, 8, 12. Je n’ai pas peur de le survendre. J’essaie d’organiser mes pensées. What are you up to today?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen island. Without waiting, he went on, “I have some errands to do, and I’m catching up on that project for the museum, they’ve asked for some more adjustments, but—”It's like the author looses steam the second our protagonist lands in Cordoba, which is an absolute let down after almost half the book knowing this will be the beginning of the Actual Quest. Eva is aware from a young age that her family life is not as it should be. There is just her, her emotionally distant mother and her partially absent father. No siblings, no pets, just the three of them. But why are there no baby photos of Eva? And why is her mother so reluctant to remember Eva as a baby? This is a quest Eva is determined to get to the bottom of. MASAD: Not really, because of how broad they are. Obviously there are elements in the book that are reflective of my life, but nothing strictly autobiographical. There are certain things in Maggie that I relate to, there are certain elements of my experience that might be reflected in aspects of the politics of the book, but none of the details of the lives of the characters are very similar. Or at least not in any kind of one-to-one way. This is a book that takes an unflinching look at sexuality and its role in our lives: how it builds bridges, burns them, and changes how others view us and how we relate to others. For some, it even changes the trajectory of their lives.” — Lilith Magazine Ilana Masad has crafted a brilliant novel about understanding and forgiveness. . . . All My Mother's Loversis a powerful debut that signals a new voice in fiction who can interweave multiple threads through a single protagonist." — Bitch

An] ambitious, cinematic debut novel . . . All My Mother’s Loversis an intimate, complex family portrait that follows the messy life of one queer woman who comes to understand that all relationships are untidy; that’s part of what makes them memorable.”— AV Club With her debut novel, Ilana Masad presents a sharp meditation on the ways our parents shape us.” — Marie Claire I simply loved this book.. It made my heart break at some parts, and made me stifle laughter at others. I literally stayed up all night to finish it, and now I have work in three hours and can't wait to recommend this book to others. The elevator was equipped with a small bench, and Iris maneuvered Harold to it, and sat with him for the short ride up to the third story where his room was. He wasn’t panting, but he wasn’t comfortable, and even as he gripped her hand, he looked away. With her debut novel, Ilana Masad presents a sharp meditation on the ways our parents shape us." — Marie Claire

All My Mother's Lovers

With deftness and subtlety, Masad has captured the full picture of being a millennial and lives that are both too public and too necessarily private. And then, at the height of the novel, we get to watch as Maggie grows and matures into someone who not only can love her mother as a parent, but can appreciate and understand her as a person. Over the years Eva has many important women in her life. Many are positive influences, such as Bridget's mother, M, and Sister Ana in Córdoba, but others are less positive. Eva realises that all of them can teach her something. Christine Orson, mother of Eva's teenage boyfriend Michael, is such an example. This is a woman who gave up her high-powered career to steer her 3 boys to their best lives, and who actually makes notes about questions to guide mealtime discussions. At Eva's first meal with the family, Christine asks them all what they consider to be their guiding principle for life. Eva's response is something she's instinctively known her whole life, but perhaps only crystallises at that point - longing. Convinced she was abducted from her home in Spain as a toddler, Eva has always longed for a loving mother, her real mother.