Books

I am totally predictable with books. I love a good memoir. Specifically, it seems, I love a good memoir that involves a mother and/or father (but always the mother) being a strong, independent, totally memorable, fairly outrageous, and rather crazy personality. I don't go out looking for that book description but it seems to be the one I like again and again. It started with Don't Let's Go to the Dogs tonight. Most recently it's The Glass Castle.

Honestly my "book memory" isn't that good. Mitch will recall details from a book for eternity. For me, it's more like 5 minutes...the perk is that I can reread books and love them as if they are new again. The thing that I've discovered as I reread these two books is that they both involve the loss of a baby (the sibling of the author in both cases), not as a focus of the book at all but rather as part of the life story of the authors. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but it's got me thinking. Does this just confirm that the loss of a baby (and being part of "the club") is more common than we realize? Or that it becomes taboo to discuss the loss of a baby so it always seems rare? Or that the death of a baby influences a mother to a degree that she's more likely to be strong, independent, rather crazy, and fairly out-of-control? Or that it influences a family beyond measure and that the death of a sibling is not only part of their story but the (or at least one of the main) defining points of their lives?

I've come to no conclusions of course, but there it is...lots of wondering.