The Day My Mother Left (review)

When Jeremy's mother leaves the family, she completely severs contact with nine-year-old Jeremy, who's left to rely on his distant older sister and his alternately lachrymose and raging father. Over the next three years, Jeremy negotiates difficult changes as his mother moves in with the father of a bullying classmate, his father remarries and brings a stepmother into the home, and his doting uncle dies; eventually, in the biggest change of all, he finally reconnects with his mother. The story is shaped more like an adult memoir than a novel, with events conveyed through a sequence of vignettes that focus on moments of important realization, leaving factual developments (such as both parents' remarriages) to inference or later mention and culminating in an internal resolution hard-won in the face of a still-disorganized external situation. The prose moves from quietly thoughtful to fluidly descriptive, the viewpoint that of a budding young artist and naturalist (Prosek's finely detailed black-and-white avian portraits stand in for Jeremy's work). Experienced and patient readers willing to read about a younger protagonist will find the most reward here, but they'll be touched by this quietly realistic treatment of a boy's adjustment to family change.