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Missing: A Memoir
Acclaimed children’s book author Cornelia Maude Spelman’s memoir of her family springs from a meeting and subsequent friendship with the late, legendary New Yorker editor William MaxwellIn the 1920s, he and her parents had been friends as undergraduates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When Spelman hints at what she thinks of as the failure of her parents’ lives, he counters that “in a good novel one doesn’t look for a success story, but for a story that moves one with its human drama and richness of experience.”
At their final meeting, Maxwell encourages her to tell her mother’s story. Missing is Spelman’s response to Maxwell’s wisdom. With the pacing of the mystery novels her mother loved, and using everything from letters and interviews to the family’s quotidian paper trail—medical records, telegrams, and other oft-overlooked clues to a family’s history—Spelman reconstructs her mother’s life and untimely death. Along the way, she unravels mysteries of her family, including the fate of her long lost older brother.
Spelman skillfully draws the reader into the elation and sorrow that accompany the discovery of a family’s past. A profoundly loving yet honest elegy, Missing is, like the woman it memorializes, complex and beautiful.
At their final meeting, Maxwell encourages her to tell her mother’s story. Missing is Spelman’s response to Maxwell’s wisdom. With the pacing of the mystery novels her mother loved, and using everything from letters and interviews to the family’s quotidian paper trail—medical records, telegrams, and other oft-overlooked clues to a family’s history—Spelman reconstructs her mother’s life and untimely death. Along the way, she unravels mysteries of her family, including the fate of her long lost older brother.
Spelman skillfully draws the reader into the elation and sorrow that accompany the discovery of a family’s past. A profoundly loving yet honest elegy, Missing is, like the woman it memorializes, complex and beautiful.
- GenresMemoir
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 28, 2010
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Cornelia Maude Spelman
30 books27 followersCornelia Maude Spelman, MSW, is a writer, artist, and former therapist. Her “The Way I Feel” picture books for children have sold over four million copies and been translated into eleven languages. Her new book A FOOT IS NOT A FISH! helps parents have fun while showing their children that it is not hard to see what is true and what is not, using absurd comparisons that will amuse every child—and parent.
SOLACE, a memoir, is about marriage, mothering, addiction, grief and friendship, and how listening can heal. Oo
SOLACE, a memoir, is about marriage, mothering, addiction, grief and friendship, and how listening can heal. Oo
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 19, 2023
Cornelia's mother smoked constantly and loved mysteries. She had five children but soon accused her son of trying to kill her. Banished to a nursing home afterward, her story was hidden until Cornelia began to piece it all together. Using interviews, letters, telegrams, and all kinds of documents, the mystery of her mother's life and the long-lost brother is told here.
Cornelia Spelman is a former therapist and children's author. A lot of those books focused on feelings, teaching them how to recognize and handle them. Between her training and this kind of background, she was certainly well-equipped to deal with hard topics in a graceful manner. The book is a memoir not just of her mother, but of the circumstances leading to the memoir's creation. There's a lot of her parents' early lives that she never knew, as most children never know about their parents as people. If not for sparking a friendship with editor William Maxwell, who had been friends with her parents in college, this volume might never have been written.
We get the story of Cornelia's life with her parents in their final years as she knew them, then the journey of obtaining medical records and talking with the doctors and nurses that knew her mother. This also led to tracking down her eldest brother, who had disappeared several times over the course of his life. She couldn't ever definitively discover what had happened to cause the psychosis, and of course, no doctor would retroactively try to guess. Then the story shifts to the past, to all of the events that made Elizabeth the woman that she was. It's in this section that I found the very poignant words: "I hoped that my children would not have to search, as I had, for buried love. But it seemed that every child had to arrive at his or her own understanding of mother and father, and of all—good and bad—that they pass on."
It was an incredible effort to try to piece together her parents' lives, particularly her mother's. Along the way she figured out a few other mysteries within her family tree. Some questions can never be answered because there are no documents to guess from. There's such a sense of loss and melancholy throughout the book because there are still so many gaps when trying to recreate a life from ephemera. We can't ever know the whole of people from the records they leave behind, but we do see glimpses of their personalities and what holds meaning to them by what they keep. In making this journey and putting it into a novel, we see that Cornelia values history and posterity as well as family connections, and her hope to pass that down. I hope others value that as well.
Cornelia Spelman is a former therapist and children's author. A lot of those books focused on feelings, teaching them how to recognize and handle them. Between her training and this kind of background, she was certainly well-equipped to deal with hard topics in a graceful manner. The book is a memoir not just of her mother, but of the circumstances leading to the memoir's creation. There's a lot of her parents' early lives that she never knew, as most children never know about their parents as people. If not for sparking a friendship with editor William Maxwell, who had been friends with her parents in college, this volume might never have been written.
We get the story of Cornelia's life with her parents in their final years as she knew them, then the journey of obtaining medical records and talking with the doctors and nurses that knew her mother. This also led to tracking down her eldest brother, who had disappeared several times over the course of his life. She couldn't ever definitively discover what had happened to cause the psychosis, and of course, no doctor would retroactively try to guess. Then the story shifts to the past, to all of the events that made Elizabeth the woman that she was. It's in this section that I found the very poignant words: "I hoped that my children would not have to search, as I had, for buried love. But it seemed that every child had to arrive at his or her own understanding of mother and father, and of all—good and bad—that they pass on."
It was an incredible effort to try to piece together her parents' lives, particularly her mother's. Along the way she figured out a few other mysteries within her family tree. Some questions can never be answered because there are no documents to guess from. There's such a sense of loss and melancholy throughout the book because there are still so many gaps when trying to recreate a life from ephemera. We can't ever know the whole of people from the records they leave behind, but we do see glimpses of their personalities and what holds meaning to them by what they keep. In making this journey and putting it into a novel, we see that Cornelia values history and posterity as well as family connections, and her hope to pass that down. I hope others value that as well.
January 26, 2023
I used to read a lot of biographies and autobiographies but have not read them since my much younger years. It was kind of nice to pick one up again and read a captivating story about an interesting person who was able to track down a lot of information about her family.
I was not familiar with Cornelia Maude Spelman or any of her work before reading this book. She has written a number of children's books that help them get through emotional, tough times. At some point she decided to delve into the lives of her family, in particular her mother, who lived a hard life and died an untimely death.
There were plenty of questions surrounding the whole family over the years and I was struck by how lucky the author was to be able to find so much information about her mother and the past generations of her family. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to have so much information available when they start researching their family.
Missing was a very enjoyable story that was easy to get caught up in as the author dissected the different personalities and issues within the family.
I was not familiar with Cornelia Maude Spelman or any of her work before reading this book. She has written a number of children's books that help them get through emotional, tough times. At some point she decided to delve into the lives of her family, in particular her mother, who lived a hard life and died an untimely death.
There were plenty of questions surrounding the whole family over the years and I was struck by how lucky the author was to be able to find so much information about her mother and the past generations of her family. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to have so much information available when they start researching their family.
Missing was a very enjoyable story that was easy to get caught up in as the author dissected the different personalities and issues within the family.
June 19, 2024
Very moving and beautifully written.
July 19, 2022
A poignant look at the author’s journey to examine her mother’s past. I love reading about personal family histories. I loved that the author included so many photos too. It’s a brief volume, but packed with much information.
Thanks to JackLeg Press and Edelweiss for the early read.
Thanks to JackLeg Press and Edelweiss for the early read.
January 11, 2011
Family is something many of us take for granted. Our parents and our siblings just are, and even if we’re curious about our parents’ lives before we came along, we often don’t do anything with that curiosity. Cornelia Maude Spelman decided she would, and she wrote about her journey to discovery in her memoir, Missing.
Spelman’s task was daunting especially because both of her parents had died by the time she decided to delve into their pasts. Her tenacity led her to investigate avenues I wouldn’t have considered, like the decades old hospital notes detailing her mother’s final illness, and personal interviews with her mother’s high school teacher and others. She was fortunate in that her family wrote letters to each other and kept many of them. She was able to look back at their writings for clues into events in their lives and their emotions surrounding them.
In the end, Spelman creates a loving look at the flawed and complicated people she loved. Missing focuses mainly on the author’s mother, and the book is divided into two parts: My Mother’s Story, and My Mother’s Past. Spelman is inspired to tell the story after a visit with one of her parents’ friends from college, William Maxwell. After college Maxwell became a famous editor in New York, while her parents went in a different direction and never thought of themselves as successful. Maxwell encourages her to tell her mother’s story.
Missing is both personal and universal, in that it recounts a child’s search to know her parents, particularly her mother. It should be inspiring to anyone who has ever wanted to know more about their own parents or other relatives who have come before them.
Spelman’s task was daunting especially because both of her parents had died by the time she decided to delve into their pasts. Her tenacity led her to investigate avenues I wouldn’t have considered, like the decades old hospital notes detailing her mother’s final illness, and personal interviews with her mother’s high school teacher and others. She was fortunate in that her family wrote letters to each other and kept many of them. She was able to look back at their writings for clues into events in their lives and their emotions surrounding them.
In the end, Spelman creates a loving look at the flawed and complicated people she loved. Missing focuses mainly on the author’s mother, and the book is divided into two parts: My Mother’s Story, and My Mother’s Past. Spelman is inspired to tell the story after a visit with one of her parents’ friends from college, William Maxwell. After college Maxwell became a famous editor in New York, while her parents went in a different direction and never thought of themselves as successful. Maxwell encourages her to tell her mother’s story.
Missing is both personal and universal, in that it recounts a child’s search to know her parents, particularly her mother. It should be inspiring to anyone who has ever wanted to know more about their own parents or other relatives who have come before them.
February 4, 2011
A beautiful, haunting story. Really made me think about my own family's past and all of the secrets and stories that I may not know about. I loved this book!
March 19, 2011
Not at all what I thought it was about. A little over-wrought I thought.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews