15 Powerful Memoirs By and About Mothers

George Hodgman’s humorous and moving memoir chronicles his struggles to care for his stubborn, aging mother Betty. Will he move her to assisted living? Will she accept that he is gay? Will they have the courage to say what is in their hearts?

Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Richard Russo turns to memoir in this hilarious and bittersweet account of his lifelong bond with his high-strung, spirited mother—and the small town she spent her life trying to escape.

When NPR’s Scott Simon began tweeting from his mother’s hospital room in July 2013, he didn’t know that his missives would soon spread well beyond his Twitter followers. These tweets became the foundation of a heart-wrenching memoir about their relationship that is laced with humor and resilience.

In her first memoir, beloved New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast addresses what it’s like being the only child of aging parents—and coping the best she can. Filled with her signature wit, this National Book Award Winner showcases the full range of Chast’s talent as a cartoonist and storyteller.

Rick Bragg grew up dirt poor in northeastern Alabama and was seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, but because of his mother’s dedication and sacrifice, he instead became a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for The New York Times.

Will Schwalbe’s frank and moving memoir documents how he and his mother formed an informal book club of two while she underwent treatment for cancer. It is a testament to the closeness between mother and son, and a loving tribute to the joy and comfort found in a good book.

Benilde Little is a bestselling novelist and former magazine editor with a strong marriage and handsome family—but the stress of caring for her aging parents sent her into a downward spiral. WELCOME TO MY BREAKDOWN is her candid, intimate journey through—and beyond—clinical depression.

A witty and fierce memoir about a life’s work to find happiness, love, identity, home, and a mother. WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN BE NORMAL? is a book full of stories about how a painful past, which Winterson thought she had buried, rose to haunt her later in life when she began searching for her biological mother.

Kaylie Jones tells the poignant story of her relationship with her famous father, author James Jones (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), and her alcoholic mother, and of her own struggles with the disease. A story of privilege, loss, and self-discovery, this is an unforgettable account of a life defined by literature and alcohol.

In this warmhearted memoir, Terry Ryan details how her mother made ends meet to support her ten children in the 1950s and ‘60s. By entering—and winning—countless contests with her clever jingles and poetic essay submissions, she took home cash and prizes from Dial soap, Lipton soup, and much more.

This memoir is Carol Burnett’s loving tribute to her relationship with her eldest daughter, Carrie Hamilton, who publicly struggled with drug addiction as a teenager but grew up to live a successful, happy, and sober life.

A compulsively readable memoir by a daughter who forged her own identity in the face of a charismatic mother addicted to sex, drugs, and lying.

From the bestselling author of FUN HOME, Alison Bechdel tells the story of her mother, a voracious reader, music lover, and passionate amateur actor who was unhappily married to a closeted gay man. This brilliantly told graphic memoir is a thrilling tale of seeking answers to why there was an abrupt divide between this mother and daughter.

In her stunning memoir, Wendy Lawless tells the often heartbreaking tale of her unconventional upbringing with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother—a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest—and the uncommon sense of resilience that allowed her to rise above it all.

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy -- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors--yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness. Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.