Glitter and Glue: A compelling memoir about one woman's discovery of the true meaning of motherhood - Softcover

Corrigan, Kelly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1444725149 ISBN 13: 9781444725148

Publisher: Coronet, 2014

Synopsis

From the author of the bestselling memoirs The Middle Place and Lift comes a compelling new memoir about the true meaning of motherhood. One of the things you should know about Kelly Corrigan is that she is the daughter of Mary Corrigan, a woman of conviction and grit who taught her kids that No Means No and Actions Speak Louder than Words and if they wanted a bunch of Rah Rah Lovey Dovey, go talk to your father - so Kelly did, over and over again, exiting her childhood with the sense that she'd always have more shared ground with him. But when she arrived in Australia in the summer of 1992, the only job she could find was as a nanny. She thought she was signing up for carpools and babysitting and some light cooking, but what she walked into instead was a household still reeling with grief from the recent loss of the mother. Completely unprepared, Kelly spent five months trying to help the Tanner family pick up the pieces. And to her surprise, she found herself quietly deferring to the wisdom of Mary Corrigan, a pattern that would become more pronounced years later, when her own daughters were born, and it turned out that each and every day demanded her mother's signature conviction and grit. This is a story about growing up and stepping up, and about the great mother-daughter adventure -- the deep ways they end up relating to each other, no matter how far apart they may have started.

About this title

Review:

Kelly Corrigan on her new memoir Glitter and Glue

I’m Irish. That must be where the luck comes from, the luck required to find a publisher after filling diaries and journals for thirty years, first in a gingham wonderland from Sears, then in a dorm room in Virginia, finally in a fixer-upper near Oakland, California.

My first book, The Middle Place, was about my father, Greenie, who was very sick at the same time that I was very sick. Next, in 2010, I tried to capture what it has been to my daughters’ mother in Lift. Finally, with Glitter and Glue, my mother gets her due. Now, Mary Corrigan is a complicated topic, as most mothers are. Think stoic, gritty, unbending; one part saint, two parts sergeant. Or, as she put it, “Your father’s the glitter, but I’m the glue. It takes both, Kelly.”

I hope that somehow, given the toppling pile of books on your nightstand, you can find an evening to spare for this story of how I came to wonder who my mom was before I arrived, what motherhood had done to her and who she had become since I left home. Parenthood is so distorting; we all deserve a second, longer look.

About the Author:

KELLY CORRIGAN is the author of The Middle Place and Lift, both New York Times bestsellers. She is a YouTube sensation whose beloved "Transcending" video has been seen by more than 5 million viewers. She is also a contributor to O, The Oprah Magazine and Good Housekeeping, and is the founder of circusofcancer.org. She lives outside San Francisco with her husband and two daughters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Coronet
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1444725149
• ISBN 13: 9781444725148
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224