The Hero of This Book

HELLER MCALPIN, NPR

"Leave it to Elizabeth McCracken to refresh the genre of the parental tribute ... a hall of mirrors, a lightly fictionalized memoir that interrogates genre and the act of writing even as it strives to conjure up McCracken's beloved mother in all her splendid idiosyncrasy in order to prevent her from 'evanescing.' It features the snappy prose we've come to love in inventive novels like The Giant's House and Bowlaway, and in McCracken's most recent collection of profoundly hilarious stories, The Souvenir Museum ... packed with consequence, with love, with funny observations, with reflections on writing and the risks of hurting yourself and others ... Natalie Jacobson McCracken, 1935-2018, comes alive as a wonderful hero of this book — and so does her daughter for writing it."

HELLER MCALPIN, NPR

"Leave it to Elizabeth McCracken to refresh the genre of the parental tribute ... a hall of mirrors, a lightly fictionalized memoir that interrogates genre and the act of writing even as it strives to conjure up McCracken's beloved mother in all her splendid idiosyncrasy in order to prevent her from 'evanescing.' It features the snappy prose we've come to love in inventive novels like The Giant's House and Bowlaway, and in McCracken's most recent collection of profoundly hilarious stories, The Souvenir Museum ... packed with consequence, with love, with funny observations, with reflections on writing and the risks of hurting yourself and others ... Natalie Jacobson McCracken, 1935-2018, comes alive as a wonderful hero of this book — and so does her daughter for writing it."