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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik |
| Original language | |
| English | |
DEAD MOM WALKING
A Memoir of Miracle Cures and Other Disasters
DEAD MOM WALKING is a cross between Tig Notaro's dark comedy One Mississippi and Chris Kelly's devastatingly funny Other People , with a queer dose of Alison Bechdel and a Jewish dollop of Transparent .
The story begins in 2010 when Rachel's mom Elainea 66-year-old alternative high school teacheris diagnosed with first-stage rectal cancer. The city's top surgeons are confident that she can be cured if she acts fast. But instead, she sets out on a path to heal herself naturally rather than submit to the deceptive ways of Evil Western Medicine.
Rachel is a gay, 30-year-old radio producer, and very good friends with her mom. Rachel usually finds her mom's dalliances with New Age trends highly entertaining (meditation, shaman camp, reiki, chakras, etc.), but this time she's gone too far.
Horrified by her decision, Rachel tries to convince her to get the recommended surgery, but she continues to resist and delves into a smorgasbord of what Rachel considers to be pie-in-the-sky cures: energy healing, visualization, herbs, etc. She even takes ayahuasca (with Rachel!). Elaine reads dozens of books that criticize the cancer industry and becomes increasingly fundamentalist in her view that Western medicine has got it all wrong. Elaine insists that she has just as good a chance of healing herself with positive thinking. Tired of fighting her, Rachel opts to pursue a peaceful relationship; however, in her view, she is a dead mom walking.
Nearly five yearsand several herbal concoctionslater, Elaine is told that her cancer has spread to her liver and she has less than six months to live. Rachel's worst fear is coming true. So she takes a leave of absence and moves in to take care of her mother.
Rachel makes it her mission to spend every last living second with Elaine. Luckily, Elaine and Rachel have always shared a dark sense of humour and that wasn't going to stop just because the ship was sinking. If anything, her dying gives them more material to work with. Enter the death doula, after party planning, and daily doses of cannabis oil. For seven weeks, Rachel and Elaine binge-watch thrilling TV and talk openly about everything, including her fatal choices.
DEAD MOM WALKING is a dark comedy about a gender-queer boy-daughter's love for her alternativeor queermother. It is also the story of a child watching a parent make a decision they don't agree with, while remaining supportive in the face of an incomprehensible choice. Filled with dark humour and candid reflection, Dead Mom Walking is a testament to the power of stories to both delude and delight, and an account of one person's quest to solve the puzzle of her own mom's psyche and, at last, find the peace to grieve.
RACHEL MATLOW is an arts and culture journalist/audio producer at the CBC. She worked on Q for eight crazy years as well as Day 6, The Sunday Edition, and now, Spark. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, National Post, CBC.ca and The Believer. She recently won a 2016 Third Coast International Audio Festival award and a 2017 Gabriel Award for her documentary Dead Mom Talking.
Rachel is a gay, 30-year-old radio producer, and very good friends with her mom. Rachel usually finds her mom's dalliances with New Age trends highly entertaining (meditation, shaman camp, reiki, chakras, etc.), but this time she's gone too far.
Horrified by her decision, Rachel tries to convince her to get the recommended surgery, but she continues to resist and delves into a smorgasbord of what Rachel considers to be pie-in-the-sky cures: energy healing, visualization, herbs, etc. She even takes ayahuasca (with Rachel!). Elaine reads dozens of books that criticize the cancer industry and becomes increasingly fundamentalist in her view that Western medicine has got it all wrong. Elaine insists that she has just as good a chance of healing herself with positive thinking. Tired of fighting her, Rachel opts to pursue a peaceful relationship; however, in her view, she is a dead mom walking.
Nearly five yearsand several herbal concoctionslater, Elaine is told that her cancer has spread to her liver and she has less than six months to live. Rachel's worst fear is coming true. So she takes a leave of absence and moves in to take care of her mother.
Rachel makes it her mission to spend every last living second with Elaine. Luckily, Elaine and Rachel have always shared a dark sense of humour and that wasn't going to stop just because the ship was sinking. If anything, her dying gives them more material to work with. Enter the death doula, after party planning, and daily doses of cannabis oil. For seven weeks, Rachel and Elaine binge-watch thrilling TV and talk openly about everything, including her fatal choices.
DEAD MOM WALKING is a dark comedy about a gender-queer boy-daughter's love for her alternativeor queermother. It is also the story of a child watching a parent make a decision they don't agree with, while remaining supportive in the face of an incomprehensible choice. Filled with dark humour and candid reflection, Dead Mom Walking is a testament to the power of stories to both delude and delight, and an account of one person's quest to solve the puzzle of her own mom's psyche and, at last, find the peace to grieve.
RACHEL MATLOW is an arts and culture journalist/audio producer at the CBC. She worked on Q for eight crazy years as well as Day 6, The Sunday Edition, and now, Spark. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, National Post, CBC.ca and The Believer. She recently won a 2016 Third Coast International Audio Festival award and a 2017 Gabriel Award for her documentary Dead Mom Talking.
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Book
Published by Penguin |