DIVThere is an unmistakable gleam in Maโs eye, and her absolute composure both appalls me and rips my heart from its root. I burst into tears. The gauntlet is thrown./div
DIVFrom the time she was conceived, Susan Morse was her motherโs โspecialโ child.ย For Susan,ย specialย translated into becoming her incorrigible motherโs frazzled caretaker, a role that continued into adulthood.ย Now she finds herself as part of the sandwich generation, responsible for a woman whose eighty-five years have been single-mindedly devoted to identifying The Answer To Everything. And, this weekโs Answer looks like it may be the real thing.
Susanโs mother is becoming a nun.
Mother Brigid is opinionated and discerning (Donโt call them trash cans. Theyโre scrap baskets!), feisty and dogmatic (Stop signs and No Parking zones are installed by bureaucratic pencil pushers with nothing better to do), a brilliant artist (truly, a saving grace), and predictably unpredictable, recently demonstrated by her decision to convert to Orthodox Christianity and join its holy order. Dressed in full nun regalia, she might be mistaken for a Taliban bigwig. But just as Mother Brigid makes her debut at church, a debilitating accident puts her in a rehab center hours from Susanโs home, where Susanโs already up to her neck juggling three teenagers, hot flashes, a dog, two cats, and a husband whose work pulls him away from the family for months at a time. Now Susan gets to find out if itโs less exhausting to be at her motherโs beck and call from one hundred miles away or one hundred feet. And sheโs beginning to suspect that the things she always thought she knew about her mother were only the tip of a wonderfully singular iceberg.
In this fresh, funny, utterly irresistible memoir, Susan Morse offers readers a look at a mother-daughter relationship that is both universal and unique. For anyone whoโs wondered how they made it through their childhood with their sanity intact, for every multitasking woman coping simultaneously with parents and children, for those of us who love our parents come hell or high water (because we just canโt help it), Susan Morseโs story is surprising, reassuring, and laugh-out-loud funny. A beguiling journey of love, forbearance, and self-discovery, The Habit introduces two unforgettable women youโll be glad to knowโfrom a safe distance./div