All My Mother's Lovers

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I want to say something about the ultimate centering of queer/ace/poly relationships among older characters, since that was special to read, but I don’t really have much to add on that front other than it was cool to read a bad book that still decently explored such an array of queer identities — may have been the first book I’ve read with an ace character!

With incisive writing and a taut plot, Masad ensures that her book remains gripping and unpredictable as she throws at the reader one inconvenient truth after another. This is why I quit hanging out in queer spaces-too many Maggies (not all of them women, not all of them millenials. One of strongest and most enjoyable aspects for me was recollecting moments when I first stepped into a situation where I owned it, made the decisions, drove it forward. Along the way, she discovers a side of her mother she never knew existed, secrets she (and in some instances, Maggie’s father) kept, and she starts to understand things her mother did and said which never had context before. Maggie tells the reader that Lucia is Puerto Rican and Black, that she has had stress and anxiety since Trump's election, and that she was so affected by the Charlottesville tragedy that she had to sleep at her own house rather than Maggie's apartment that night.When that parent dies before the child understands their mother or father to be an independent, complex human being, separate from themselves, the answers revealed after death can turn the person they are grieving into someone they only recognize in part. Emotionally powerful and thought-provoking, Ilana Masad's debut novel, All My Mother's Lovers, is a look at family dynamics, secrets, motherhood, sexuality, marriage, and grief.

It was a luxurious sensation, like being Eloise at the Plaza, and when the elevator opened and she saw Abe standing at his majestic six-foot-three height, she had the urge to run to him, jump on him like someone in a rom-com. As Maggie sets off on an impromptu road trip after the death of her mother, the trip becomes a metaphor for life itself. So Maggie embarks on a road-trip to deliver the letters in person, viewing this as her last chance to understand Iris better, with whom her relationship has been fraught for years.Even before Maggie uncovers the truth about Iris’ alternate life, she has an inkling that her belief in her parents’ perfect marriage is about to crumble.

As we go through the story, we watch Maggie evolve from an angsty somewhat immature twenty something to someone who begins to understand the complexity of relationships as she learns about her mother as a person versus her mother as a parent. All My Mother’s Lovers is a beautiful celebration of this continuity, and the value of communication across generations. I found myself thinking about growing older in new ways, but more importantly living a full life as I age.LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. Iris made it known that she struggled with her daughter's sexuality and this has a lasting impact on Maggie's life. A unique meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties and grief, and a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity, All My Mother's Lovers challenges us to question the nature of fulfilling relationships.

But what sets *Mother's Lovers* (I love the rhyme in the title) apart is how definitively modern it is.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Yet 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. The book never quite reconciles the Iris we understand within the familial unit of the Krause home with the woman Maggie learns about in talking to these men. It was incredibly insightful; if you’re looking for a fictional read that diversifies your ideas of LGBTQ+ life I recommend this book. Maggie and her mother, Iris, weren't close, especially since Maggie came out, but she never thought they would run out of time to figure each other out.