In this anthology of creative nonfiction, twenty-eight writers set
out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person
they call
Mother. Celebrated writers Samia Serageldin and
Lee Smith have curated a diverse and insightful collection that
challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of
motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped,
for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their
time. Whether their formative experience was the Great Depression
or the upheavals of the 1970s, their lives reflected their era and
influenced how they raised their children. The writers in
Mothers and Strangers explore the reliability of memory,
examine their family dynamics, and come to terms with the past.
In addition to the editors, contributors include Belle Boggs,
Marshall Chapman, Hal Crowther, Clyde Edgerton, Marianne Gingher,
Jaki Shelton Green, Sally Greene, Stephanie Elizondo Griest,
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Eldridge "Redge" Hanes, Lynden Harris, Randall
Kenan, Phillip Lopate, Michael Malone, Frances Mayes, Jill
McCorkle, Melody Moezzi, Elaine Neil Orr, Steven Petrow, Margaret
Rich, Omid Safi, James Seay, Alan Shapiro, Bland Simpson, Sharon K.
Swanson, and Daniel Wallace.