Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Mot: A Memoir” as Want to Read:
Mot: A Memoir
Enlarge cover
Rate this book
Clear rating
Open Preview

Mot: A Memoir

by
4.53  ·  Rating details ·  124 ratings  ·  34 reviews
At forty, Sarah Einstein is forced to face her own shortcomings. In the wake of an attempted sexual assault, she must come to terms with the facts that she is not tough enough for her job managing a local drop-in center for adults with mental illness and that her new marriage is already faltering. Just as she reaches her breaking point, she meets Mot, a homeless veteran ...more
Hardcover, 168 pages
Published September 15th 2015 by University of Georgia Press
More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Mot, please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
Sarah Different libraries choose whether or not to order specific books. If you ask your librarian, she might well be able to get it for you through…moreDifferent libraries choose whether or not to order specific books. If you ask your librarian, she might well be able to get it for you through inter-library loan, though. Thank you for your interest in the book!(less)

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30
Average rating 4.53  · 
Rating details
 ·  124 ratings  ·  34 reviews


More filters
 | 
Sort order
Start your review of Mot: A Memoir
Sidney
Aug 21, 2015 rated it it was amazing
I think this book is a brilliant insight into the life of a homeless mentally ill man. Sarah Einstein took a trip that most people would not consider, but the resulting tale will keep you fascinated. Incidentally, I am her mother, so while I am proud of the book, the adventure behind it turned my hair grey. But please read the book; it will make my child happy. After you read it, please give it many stars. Five would be great. Thank you!
Marie Manilla
Dec 26, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Sarah Einstein’s memoir, Mot, is the story of an unconventional friendship. Sadly, most people would run away from Mot, a homeless vet with a cast of harpies and frightening bigots living in his head. Einstein is not most people, and her memoir reveals just how far out on a limb she’ll go to bring comfort and order to Mot’s life, even as—perhaps especially as—her own marriage is falling apart. I found myself rooting for Mot who valiantly resists those alarming voices in his head. He also offers ...more
Melissa
Aug 20, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Cancel your appointments, call in sick to work, and read this book!
Mike Ray
Sep 02, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Outstanding! It expanded on the award-winning essay and the additional information made the story that much more compelling.
Brendan O'Meara
Aug 15, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Imagine a memoir where the author makes another character the main focus. That's what Sarah Einstein does and that's why this memoir succeeds where others fail.
Sheryl
Jul 06, 2015 rated it it was amazing
This is a very thought provoking memoir. I would like to thank NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this book for my honest review.

Sarah is a 40 yr. old woman, who is trying to make the world a better place. She is the director of a drop in homeless shelter that was geared for the mentally ill and homeless everything was going just fine until the street drugs started getting smuggled in and the clientele were a lot more violent and the drug dealers were hanging around the place to
...more
Ethan
May 31, 2017 rated it it was amazing
This is a book about many things: homelessness, mental illness, compassion, relationships, even a bit of a travel narrative. But the core is the story of an unlikely friendship as beautiful as it is heart breaking. I don't read a lot of memoirs or creative non-fiction. Much of that sort of thing is a bit pretentious for my tastes. Besides, I have a huge stack of science fiction and philosophy to read. Nonetheless, Einstein's work is stylish without being pretentious, readable without being ...more
Donna Davis
Sarah is forty, and she’s floundering. Her life’s work, like her mother’s, has been to try to make the world a better place, and so she works at a homeless shelter as its director. But things are falling apart there; whereas once upon a time most of the mentally ill homeless were passive, now meth and other addictions have created so much anger and violence that she isn’t even safe there. She’s been physically attacked three times, one of which was sexual, and her life has been threatened on an ...more
Zoe Zolbrod
Aug 20, 2015 rated it it was amazing
I have read several other books since I finished this, but Mot is the one I can't stop thinking about. It's a fascinating story, for one thing--a newly remarried middle-aged woman befriends a mentally ill homeless man and travels to see him not once, but twice, enjoying a companionship that's both warm and natural as well as fraught and unusual, while her work and home life are suffering. The prose is evocative and effortless, and I felt transported to the locations described, as if I had just ...more
Pamela
Aug 22, 2015 rated it it was amazing
This is simply a smart, compelling memoir, without a shred of preciousness or self-indulgence. This is about Mot, and mental illness and homelessness--and a woman's impulse to fix things (including her marriage) with material patches, and selfless engagement. There is so much to admire about this book, which won the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Award for Creative Non Fiction: Clean, insightful writing; a strange and fascinating central character and a narrator coming to terms ...more
Nancy Peacock
Aug 20, 2015 rated it it was amazing
It is not easy to write a book that drops its reader immediately into story and keeps her there, a book that is simple and direct, but also brilliant and deep. I like to be moved. I like to cry and I like to laugh and I like to feel tension. And I truly admire a story that is simple and directly told, but haunts me once it's over. MOT by Sarah Einstein delivers all of this and more. Einstein gives us much to think about in regards to homelessness and our responsibilities to human beings ...more
Polly
Aug 20, 2015 rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: 2015
Powerful and moving, though not in the least sentimental. Nor, really, what I expected. Wow.
Laura Bentley
Sep 07, 2018 rated it it was amazing
From the unique cover to the first chapter where I read "I'm here to visit Mot, a new and unlikely friend who wanders from place to place dragging a coterie of dead relatives, celebrities, Polish folktale villains, and Old Testament gods along with him in his head," I knew that I would finish this book. In fact, it's the best book that I've read this year. It's an intimate, captivating, and compassionate story of a homeless veteran and a brave woman who tries to help him.
Lara Lillibridge
Mar 14, 2017 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: memoir
Mot is a memoir detailing the friendship between a woman at an impasse in her life and a homeless, mentally ill man. Carefully written, it informs what it is to be human and how sometimes in life we don't get the satisfying answers we hope for.

I quickly became immersed in the narrative and came to care deeply about both central characters. Sarah Einstein writes clearly but with a keen eye for the moments that illustrate the whole—it never bogs down in mundane.
Sybil
Sep 24, 2016 rated it it was amazing
Einstein writes sensitively and generously about her friendship with Mot, a homeless veteran. From the beginning Einstein details Mot's struggles as well as her own in way that is sympathetic yet realistic. I was taken with their friendship, which required much understanding and forgiveness on both sides, and their desire to maintain a friendship that was bound to end, was touching. Mot's uncomfortableness with the world mirrors Einstein's own discomfort in her newish marriage, and their ...more
Alex DiFrancesco
Aug 20, 2015 rated it it was amazing
I don't normally read a lot of memoirs, but I couldn't stop reading this one. Sarah Einstein draws a beautiful portait of a man in the fringes of society and her own loving but fraught relationship to him. Through the exploration of this friend, she reveals to the reader a great deal of herself. Sarah's prose is beautiful, her writing about the intricacies of her friend's mental illness and delusions is non-judgmental, and her exploration of her own self is fearless. This is a beautiful book ...more
Sandra Lambert
Aug 20, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Sarah Einstein’s memoir is all those, what have now become, cliched phrases used about a wonderful book—”a stunning strength of language,” “tender,” “confrontational,” “grounded in clarity,” “insightful,” “compelling.” Every page, in every description of each character no matter how “minor,” in every interaction, Sarah Einstein writes with concrete, unsentimental directness about what it means to be human.
Beth
Aug 28, 2015 rated it it was amazing
Great read. After spending the last two afternoons with Mot and Sarah, I feel so connected to them both. Following this journey, I was brought into their world, if only for a small moment in time.
Renée
May 25, 2015 rated it it was amazing
My review at RAIN TAXI of Sarah Einstein's beautiful Mot: A Memoir:

http://www.raintaxi.com/mot-a-memoir/
Kelly
Aug 26, 2015 rated it it was amazing
An amazing expose of both a social worker and a homeless vet whom circumstances threw together and Einstein's beautiful interrogation of what it all might mean. Must read!
Jamie Cattanach
Apr 21, 2015 rated it really liked it
A beautiful and honest self-portrait of the author via a lovingly-drawn portrait of her enigmatic friend. I really enjoyed this.
Andrea
Oct 30, 2015 rated it it was amazing
A book for anyone who has done service, who has perhaps given too much in trying to save others. An unflinching look at what it really means for one person to try to change the world.
Kate
Jan 10, 2016 rated it really liked it
Excellent storytelling and thoughtful self-reflection at the end of the book.
Robyn Obermeyer
Mar 06, 2017 rated it it was amazing
I really liked this book. Seeing into the lives of others less fortunate is always sad, especially the homeless in America. Reading into what it is like to work in homeless shelters and the challenges of both the workers and the homeless is interesting. My 33 yr old son has been diagnosed with a thought disorder almost 10 yrs now. Ive gone to nami classes and done a lot of reading on mental illness. It isn't easy on him or me cause the way the brain works or disconnects is still such a ...more
Cheryl Pallant
Jun 26, 2017 rated it it was amazing
A heartful portrait of a man who most wouldn't even notice. Honestly done. Bravo!
Taube
Jul 11, 2015 rated it it was amazing
In 2011, Sarah Einstein’s essay, “Mot,” originally published by the literary journal Ninth Letter in 2009, won a Pushcart Prize. It was a beautifully realized essay describing the author’s friendship with a homeless veteran, Tom, who prefers to be referred to by the anagrammatic nomenclature, Mot.
As much as I enjoyed that essay, the brevity of the format necessarily left questions unanswered, suspended in space. The resulting portrait of Mot was like the tenuous remnants of a cobweb after a
...more
Jules
Aug 28, 2016 rated it it was amazing
I will say off the bat that memoirs and nonfiction essays are not my usual fare; I usually prefer genre fiction, plays or poetry as forms of expression. With this disclaimer then, I can safely say that Mot was one of the most interesting and moving books I have read in years.

I generally judge literature by three rough criteria:
1. quality of writing,
2. did I have a response (emotionally or intellectually) to it, and
3. did it stay with me. Mot fulfills all these, and more.

The author
...more
Angelika Rust
Jul 16, 2015 rated it it was amazing
First things first, I received a free copy of this one in return for an honest review. And boy, am I going to honest the hell out of it.
As the title says, it is a memoir, a true story, of a woman and a friendship. The woman is Sarah, forty, and struggling to stay afloat in the mess her life has somehow become. Torn apart by a job she doesn't feel she's up to and a husband whose attention is fixed on his psychotic client, she finds an odd sort of peace, or at least some sort of getaway, in her
...more
Michele
Aug 21, 2015 rated it it was amazing
What do you get when you commit to a friendship with a person who is intelligent, delusional, grandiose, and terrified? Sarah Einstein’s memoir explores her commitment to Mot, a man she meets during the course of her work managing a homeless shelter in West Virginia. As her friendship with Mot is tested by his eccentricity and her own fears, her marriage is tested on a parallel track. She treats both commitments with honesty, compassion, and more than a little self-awareness, but the main focus ...more
Elizabeth
May 01, 2016 rated it it was amazing
Mot is a wonderful memoir, and Sarah Einstein an amazing writer. I devoured the book, reading it quickly, then revisiting my favorite parts to relish them. I like it so much that I bought, read, and loved the Kindle version, and now purchased the hardback in hopes I can get it signed. The memoir is full of integrity. She treats Mot, and all of the people in the memoir, with respect. I've read an article (maybe more than one) where she said she felt it very important to stay very truthful and ...more
« previous 1 next »
There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Readers also enjoyed

  • Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird
  • Angelhead: My Brother's Descent into Madness
  • Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man
  • Wishbone: A Memoir In Fractures
  • Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction
  • Without a Map
  • Crazy Brave
  • Grief is the Thing with Feathers
  • Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System
  • Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs
  • The Substitute (The Wedding Pact, #1)
See similar books…
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »