Summary

Preface to “My Mother’s Life” The author writes of a time when he was ill, and his mother insisted they go to church to pray for help from Jesus. He tried to argue, he says, but as always, she won.

In "My Mother’s Life,” the author writes of how his mother’s relationship with Abel began (he was the mechanic who repeatedly and reliably fixed her troublesome car); how he warned his mother not to marry Abel (something about him, the author writes, just was not right); and how his mother refused to fit in with Abel’s very traditional family. The author describes how, once he and the author’s mother were married, Abel began getting increasingly drunk more and more often. Finally, the author describes one night in which Abel came home drunk and forgot a pot on the...