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A poignant and beautiful memoir told in essays and graphic shorts about what life looks like twenty years after recovery from addiction - and how to live with the past as a parent, writer, and sober person - from a regular opener for David Sedaris, Cindy House.
Mother Noise opens with Cindy, twenty years into recovery after a heroin addiction, grappling with how to tell her nine-year-old son about her past. She wants him to learn this history from her, not anyone else; but she worries about the effect this truth may have on him. Told in essays and graphic narrative shorts, Mother Noise is a stunning memoir that delves deep into our responsibilities as parents while celebrating the moments of grace and generosity that mark a true friendship—in this case, her benefactor and champion through the years, David Sedaris.
This is a powerful memoir about addiction, motherhood, and Cindy's ongoing effort to reconcile the two. Are we required to share with our children the painful details of our past, or do we owe them protection from the harsh truth of who we were before?
With dark humor and brutal, clear-eyed honesty, Mother Noise brilliantly captures and gorgeously renders our desire to look hopefully forward—while acknowledging the darkness of the past.
"A brutal story of heroin addiction gives way to a heartening look at motherhood in this brilliant debut from essayist House...it's her raw prose and poignant musings on parenting...that make this sing. A full-throated anthem of hope, this lends light to a dark issue." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A powerful, brilliant exploration of motherhood and its inextricable links to the other selves comprising a mother; those pieces that society doesn't accept as part of the entrenched narrative about the meaning and purpose of motherhood." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Despite the often depressing material, there is hope and considerable beauty in these pages, most notably in a section in which Atlas, showing uncommon compassion for his age, visits his dying teacher and holds her hand. A grim yet hopeful portrait of one woman's emergence and triumph over drug dependency." - Kirkus Reviews
"The scope of Cindy House's knowledge is as remarkable as her humor, her depth, and her great skill as an essayist. This is her time." - David Sedaris, New York Times bestselling author of Calypso
"Fresh, funny, and fearless, Cindy House bares her soul in Mother Noise and offers a hope-filled look at life after addiction — as a parent, as an artist, and as a citizen of the world. The humanity and honesty here are exceptional — and leavened with a delicious humor." - Bill Clegg, New York Times bestselling author of Did You Ever Have a Family and Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man
This information about Mother Noise was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cindy House is an essayist, short story writer, artist, and a regular opener for David Sedaris on his tours across the country. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned an MFA from Lesley University in 2017. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her husband and son.
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