The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok

I’m not really sure how to summarize this book as it’s a memoir of Bartok’s life with her mother Norma, a paranoid schizophrenic. As she begins the book she’s been out of contact with her mother for seventeen years when she gets a phone call letting her know that her mother is dying. She and her sister both rush to be by her side despite everything they’ve been through. They discover their mother’s storage unit and begin the long task of sorting through it. As they do so, Mira begins to remember bits and pieces of her past and puts it down on paper. She has an interesting way of remembering things which is where the title of the book comes from. In her mind, she imagines a memory palace. In each room are specific objects that help connect her to incidents or times in her life. Throughout the book she travels through her memory palace remembering her life with and without her mother.

It took me a bit to get into the book but once I did I really liked it. The writing is beautiful and the stories are haunting. Mira and her sister have quite a childhood but still manage to get away from their mother as soon as they are old enough. Unfortunately, she continues to cause problems by calling multiple times a day at all hours, and even goes so far as to show up on their doorsteps demanding to know if their wombs were stolen and warning them of imagined dangers. At this point the sisters change their names, addresses, and numbers so that their mother cannot find them and harass them anymore. Mira has a hard time with this decision feeling that she should try and do more for her mother, knowing that she is probably living on the streets. I was amazed at her ability to feel this way after the way she was treated by her mother. (One of the memories that haunts Mira is of her mother holding a broken bottle to her neck.)

As their mother is dying, the sisters are able to come to some closure as they spend many days at her bedside. They get her placed in nice nursing home and gather her friends around. Reading of those last few days were very touching. Once again, the writing really helped to convey the emotions of the sisters. In some sense there is some relief that their mother is dying (she is over 80) but there is also some guilt, wondering if they should have done more for her. And of course there is a huge feeling of sadness and love. She is, after all their mother.

I found the story upsetting at times because of how little help they were able to find for their mother. I haven’t had much experience with mental illness but I found it disheartening that while it was obvious that Norma needed help, the sister were unable to obtain it despite all the avenues they pursued. Many times after major psychotic breaks that required hospitalization, Norma was sent home the very next day alone. Also, the sisters tried numerous times to get her declared incompetent, which they were unable to do, due to Norma’s ability to buy cigarettes and balance her chequebook. Even after stabbing her own mother multiple times in the back, the girls were unable to her any extra help.

I just had one teeny little complaint about the book…there were a few spots that just didn’t make sense. I believe this was an editing issue and there were just some missing words but something about the writing, made me wonder if this was perhaps a literary device? If so, it didn’t work for me. (There are portion of the book that were taken directly from Norma’s journals and a lot of these sections didn’t make a lot of sense either but I understand that there were included to show a small part of Norma’s thinking. These are not the parts I’m referring to.)

In the end, I did enjoy the book and found that although it was sad, it wasn’t depressing. There was a sense of peace and hope throughout the book that kept it from getting too dark.