Dear Hillary,
Your book should be required reading for all mothers and daughters. It's an excellent rendition of the mysterious, magical and sometimes tragic mother/daughter relationship.
Poignantly portrayed, you and your artist/mother/homemaker rooted yourselves in my heart. Your splendid writing moved me to tears and I couldn't bear for the book to end. For me, Ruth was very much alive in the last pages of your book and because she lives there, her memory lingers. How can I tell you what this book meant to me? Wordless, that's how I find myself, and a wordless writer is a worthless writer. You see, your book has rendered me speechless. You have a profound gift! Your mother was an excellent writer, too--witty, charismatic, fun, irreverent. Consider yourself blessed, not only because you're a fantastic writer but the daughter of a mother who was so fascinatingly rich herself that it made you rich.
Above all, keep writing...I love how your writing has "frosted the[se past winter] days with a certain" magic because even though the book is sad, it's oxymoronically beautifully sad. I cracked up when she wrote, "I seem to be injured." How wonderful that you saved her writings, her thoughts, relfections. Thank you, Hillary, beyond imagining for writing this book...
A daughter's memoir, with her mother's letters and art
I have just finished reading MY MOTHER RUTH by Hillary Johnson, art by Ruth Jones, the mother Johnson nursed during her final illness. This is a beautiful memoir to the complex relationship of mothers and daughters, a memoir addressing those who have cared for and watched a loved one die, a memoir about the coming of age of a woman who became a wife and mother at a very young age in the fifties. Ms. Johnson has captured the magnificence and complexity of the mother-daughter relationship, an artist's struggle to express herself, a family member dealing with the myriad of problems that are present in watching a loved one pass on. The author's prose is glorious, and she uses many notes her mother wrote to her after she was rendered mute fom throat cancer surgery. Johnson has preserved the many legal pads filled by her Mother after her surgery, and uses them in her book to give a voice to Ruth for all, and a voice from Ruth to her daughter. The bonus for readers is the reproduction of Ruth Jones' art, whimsical and telling of her life, and the insight it gave her daughter into her mother's own self expression.
Most poignant memoir of a mother/daughter relationship
I feel I cannot do justice writing a review on such a high caliber memoir. Emotions run so deep and the characters are made so lifelike that I felt such a kinship with this family. Hillary Johnson is a fantastic writer and a fabulous daughter and caretaker. She deserves five gold stars for the wonderful job she did taking care of her mother through such dramatic medical horrors. I am honored and enriched for having read her book. Her mother was the bravest of women who faced life and illness with the best attitude possible. Her book will be the biggest help to me as my mother's health continues to decline. Thank you to both of you, Hillary and Ruth. Your mother was absolutely right to encourage the writing of this painful, truthful account of her living and dying. I am ordering it now for my sisters.
Eloquent and Fine
This "shared memoir" is a gem in every way: from the author's eloquent writing style to her mother's whimsical yet provocative drawings and even the smooth surfaces of the pages. Like the physical feel of the pages and the colors in her mother's artwork, the authors' words are finely wrought and rich. I didn't want to put the book down.
A Customer
This book is an entrancing autobiography and biography of a woman and her mother and in particular the story of a rekindeling of their connection as adults when the mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Unlike the suggestion of the title this is not a depressing story, it is strongly life affirming, funny and an interesting look at two remarkable women. It has helped me greatly in dealing with my own mother's death from cancer. I recommend it highly!
This book speaks to every Daughter!
I met Hillary this weekend at her High School Reunion, which I attended with my Fiancee. I am VERY sorry that I did not have more time to speak with her, our weekend was too short! You would never know Hillary was sick with CFS, her demeanor, quiet manner, and her easy humor put me, a profoundly shy woman at ease immediately!
The morning we left, she stopped by our room, and gave me a copy of her book, 'My Mother Ruth.' The gesture touched me deeply, as I am an author, and one of the hardest things for me to do is give one of my books away, it is like giving away a small piece of my soul. Selling them is different, but to give one away is never easy.
I am deeply thankful that she did so, as I started reading it Monday morning, and finished it at 8:30 a.m., Tuesday morning, I could not put it down, finishing dinner with it in my hand, forgoing unpacking, and a myriad of other tasks, to continue reading.
It is amazing how much our Mothers of that period went through, what their own Mothers went through, and how much that shaped how they raised us, not wanting to teach us to reach for too much, thinking their warnings of failure were an honest attempt to cushion the blows and rejections sure to come to us in life, but almost forced to embrace a feminist movement few of them could join, as they were already Mothers of young children.
That almost forcible delay of their dreams so that they could raise us, led to a shattering of our lives and connections from the time we were young women, until we are often in our 40s or 50s or later. Often only their own mortality forces us both back to the table to try and resolve the loveless years in between.
Thank you, Hilary for putting into words so honestly the very same issues many females (and males) who were both born, and grew up during the 50s to 70s transitional years, have faced with our Mothers.
T. Lindsey aka Ronin Schtihl Daire
fellow author and chronic illness survivor
Dear Hillary Johnson,
I've just finished reading
My Mother Ruth and want to tell you how moving I found it.
Rather than try to be coherent about this I'm going to just ramble.
Mainly, I think it's wonderful that you wrote this book. It's a wonderful memorial of your mother---you really made her live. I love her art work, quirky, whimsical, light-hearted though not light, quite dark, acutally, some of it, very gritty, very amusing. I'm usually totally insensitive to art but I found myself studying these reproductions and getting a real sense of a person, a vision, a talent...what a pity she destroyed so much of it, but how good that you managed to resurrect some and bring it together and write the narrative that brings it alive.
I wish you had included more pictures of yourself--only the one of you and your mother wasn't enought; I'd have liked to have seen the two of you through the years.
The description of her death is almost unbearable. I kept having to put the book down until the tears cleared. I went through this in May 1997 with my mother, not so long and painful as yours though at the time it seemed forever; I kept her at home (her home), and reading your book made me realize how right I was to do this, lucky, mainly, because her disease (liver) progressed quickly enough that we could avoid all that and I could get away with good homehelp and hospice. She was 89, she'd been in pretty good shape until a few motnhs before the end, and you'd think I'd be ready, but no.
I also resonated to your description of the doctors. I am so glad you found one good one. I didn't know they came like Brian Rank anymore. My mother was abandoned by her doctors, much to my surprise, since I'd thought they were good doctors; maybe they were, they simply had no interest in an old woman dying. We were alone through the experience, except for Hospice. Also, I have no other family, though reading about the tensions that developed in your household, I see that in some ways it might have been easier to go through it alone.
Anyhow, I am trying to write about all this, to pull it together into a memoir, and so especially appreciated your book and how skillfully you pull it off, how you keep the narrative going and weave past together with present, your story with hers. And how you don't resort to cheap tricks for suspense but allow the suspense to be simply the unfolding of character. It's a very honest book. My story begins with the death and then a lot of the book concerns what happens next, the mourning process, when you hae no family, no religion or ethnic identity, no community, just a suburb in Silicon Vally (a real problem with suspense, with this material). I, like you, left the place I grew up, lived in NY for a number of years (graduate school), got a teaching job that brought me back to California, and so managed to spend some time with my mother in her old age, time when we could work out some of our issues (though by no means all--thank God she lived long enough for us to work some of them through).
We ought to form support groups for survivors of brilliant, charismatic mothers. Your statements about never being loved so extravagantly, your dread at her not being in the world--all very familiar. It's all very hard for an unmarried woman, without children (I hate the world "childless," since this is the condition I seem to have chosen, always chasing some career thing, can't quite remember what that was about, but it seemed urgent...)
I found incredibly moving your description of your mother's creativity in the last days--that scene where she drags herself to the balcony and paints the lake. I also found it amazing that you actually wrote
Osler's Web (a book I admire very much), while actually having the disease, and while your mother was dying.
Anyhow, I'm sure you'll get a lot of people writing you with the stories of their lives, your book inspires it, and that's a tribute to it. I found myself learning about myself as I read, you know, the way you learn what you are by seeing what you're not--she was such a loner, my mother, as compared to yours, she was a pianist, wanted to be a creator, but didn't quite have it, but did have a very strong sense of beauty, very political, a feminist before I was, very biting, too, yet...oh well, very complicated. But you were incredibly generous with your mom at the last. I remained sort of, well, defended; and she remained somewhat of a riddle, I must say, I don't really understand her as clearly as you get Ruth. Wonderful to have that artwork left behind, to be able to reconstruct her through that. Also, the testimony of others; also, your closeness.
I found myself thinking about your health problems, too, and hoping they haven't got worse since your mother's death; it's so debilitating, what you went through, it took me two years to get back anything like my old stamina and I never really got it all back, it just sort of permanently aged me, saddened me, slowed me down...
You see, you've written a really good memoir; makes your readers want to spend more time with you.
wishing you all the best...
