Fascinating

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A riveting tale about a daughter being made complicit in her mother's affair. I have heard the author tell her story on Dani Shapiro's podcast so I was already familiar with how most of the events in the book unfolded, but I was still sucked in by the colorful anecdotes and intense prose. This is one of those cases were life seems stranger than fiction, with unexpected developments lying ahead. Brodeur writes beautifully and unflinchingly about her unusual upbringing and the mother she looked up to and adored, but who seemed to value her relationships and her happiness more than her daughter.
"... I didn’t have a moral compass. It would be years before I understood the forces that shaped who she was and who I became and recognized the hurt that we both caused. What I knew then was that nothing made me feel more loved than making my mother happy, and any means justified that end. Starting when I was fourteen, what made my mother happy was Ben Souther."