NOBODY KNEW SHE WAS THERE

In this interview-based memoir with hints of a mystery, a man tries to get to the bottom of his mother’s troubled life.

Debut memoirist Glascoe opens his story at the nursing home where his mother, Maggie, is in the end-of-life stage with Alzheimer’s. He then begins his search of the past in their native Scotland and in Toronto, where Glascoe’s family had immigrated when he was still a child. In Scotland, his father, Bob, worked in the coal mines before and after his traumatic World War II service, while Maggie supported the family with factory defense work. Living close to the bone, it wasn’t a happy marriage, yet it lasted right up until Bob committed suicide and Maggie’s Alzheimer’s began to manifest. But had she been seriously unbalanced long before that? Glascoe gathers recollections from his estranged brother, his nephew, his daughter, his wife and others, probing what they remember and what they feel—anything that could shed light on the life of this passionate, intelligent but stymied and contentious woman. Memories conflict, and many of these people are in denial. Glascoe learns more about the family’s messy dynamics than he ever realized; in fact, it may all be a fool’s errand with no satisfying answers, and he may never truly know his mother and her dark motivations. In an ironic twist, the funeral home misplaces then “finds” her ashes, so Margaret McGregor Glascoe is as elusivea figure in death as she was in life. Aware and witty, Glascoe is a talented writer. The chapters adroitly toggle between his weekly visits with his mother in a Toronto nursing home and his interviews with everyone who might illuminate his search. The nursing home scenes can be rather depressing, and he captures that despair and absurdity perfectly. In an eloquent late chapter that could stand by itself, he reminds readers that Maggie was like most of us: We will never be famous or exceedingly celebrated, but we deserve to be remembered and loved.

A tortured love letter from son to mother, well worth reading.