What We Carry

November 4, 2019
Lang (The Sixteenth of June) delivers a stirring memoir exploring the fraught relationships between mothers and daughters. Born to Indian immigrants, Lang grew up in New York City in the 1980s and ’90s with a stern physician mother and a father who accused her of exaggerating injuries for attention. After her parents divorced, Lang had little contact with her father and lived with her sometimes-distant, fiercely independent mother. After the author’s daughter Zoe was born, Lang suffered from a crippling postpartum depression; she asked her mother for help, but her mother refused: “My body cannot handle travel anymore.... If I tried to come to you right now I would die on the plane. And would that make you feel any better? No.” Years later, when Lang’s daughter was in grade school, her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease—and it was Lang who stepped in to take care of the mother who had refused to care for her. Lang details the difficulties of parental caregiving—making sure her mother eats, dealing with her intense mood swings and memory loss—and examines her own complex emotions as her mother undergoes treatment (“When she was thorny and awful, I was sympathetic. Now that she’s thriving, I feel hostile”). Lang’s astutely written and intense memoir will strike a chord with readers dealing with a parent’s dementia.

Starred review from February 1, 2020

Lang (The Sixteenth of June) does a great job of understanding and conveying to readers the complexity of the relationship dynamics between mothers and daughters. She begins her story from the perspective of the daughter of a successful psychiatrist mother, an immigrant who put her own needs aside for the benefit of her family. After Lang moves across the country and gives birth to her own daughter, and subsequently suffers postpartum depression, she starts to re-evaluate the terms of her existing mother-daughter relationships. Part self-discovery, part family history, the book takes readers on Lang's journey through her struggles with new motherhood and, later, her caregiving experiences after her mother develops dementia. Her analysis of the shifting roles of mothers and daughters, particularly through the lens of immigration, help to challenge her family's mythology and create a more realistic picture of these roles for the benefit of her own daughter. VERDICT Readers interested in examining their own family stories, or those who experienced the struggles of new parenthood or reversed parenting roles, will connect deeply with Lang's beautiful memoir.--Mattie Cook, Flat River Community Lib., MI

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