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Where you end and I begin : a memoir / Leah McLaren.

by McLaren, Leah, author.

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New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2022]

McLaren, Leah -- Family.

Women authors, Canadian -- 21st century -- Biography.

Authors, Canadian -- 21st century -- Biography.

Mothers and daughters.

9780063037182 (hardcover) :

0063037181 (hardcover) :

240 pages ; 24 cm

"When Leah is eight, her mother, Cessie, abruptly flees her role as a rural housewife in search of a glamorous career in the city. In the chaotic years that follow, Cessie lurches from one apartment, job, and toxic romance to the next. In a home without rules or emotional boundaries, daughter and mother become close confidantes--a state of enmeshment that suits them both. Their bond is loving but also marked by casual indifference. Cessie's self-described parenting style of "benign neglect" is a hilarious party joke, but for her daughter it's reality. In Leah's first year of high school, her mother makes a makes a disclosure that will alter their relationship: she confides that from the age of twelve till well into her teens, she was the lover of her forty-five-year-old married pony club instructor. The trauma of the "Horseman," Cessie explains, is not just a dark family secret but the reason for all her ill-conceived life choices, including marriage and motherhood itself, which she now bitterly regrets. For years after, into adulthood, Leah is haunted by the specter of the Horseman. He is the nameless darkness she observes in Cecily and worse yet, recognizes in herself. Eventually, she and Cessie set out to discover the truth of what became of her mother's rapist. The investigation that ensues pushes their relationship to the brink of collapse. Leah is seeking solace in the facts, but first she must confront a deeper, more painful truth: that her story--the story of trying and failing to love a complicated mother--is not the Horseman's after all. A riveting and devastating portrait of mother and daughter, Where You End and I Begin is memoir that explores how trauma is shared between women and how acts of harm can be confused with acts of love."-- Publisher.

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