THE HERO OF THIS BOOK by Elizabeth McCracken

Whether or not I like an author depends a lot on which of their books I read first.  In the case of Elizabeth McCracken, I loved The Giant’s House, but if I had read Niagara Falls All Over Again or Bowlaway first, I probably would not still be reading her books.  This book, however, is another winner for me.  Marketed as a novel, it’s mostly a memoir and totally a paean to the author’s beloved but now deceased mother.  The first-person narrator is in London visiting, contemplating and commenting on various sites she had visited with her mother or would have liked to.  Her mother had mobility issues her entire life, due to cerebral palsy—a diagnosis that the narrator/daughter was not aware of until she became an adult.  The prose here is smart, funny, and touching, but if you’re looking for a meaty plot, don’t expect to find one here.  The narrator also reflects on the craft of writing and insists that a character’s physical characteristics be described.  I couldn’t agree more.  I always find it frustrating if I cannot picture a character in my mind.  In this case, the author describes her mother quite vividly, including her diminutive stature and her eyebrows, “which were like nobody else’s.”  Oddly enough, I did not find the narrator’s mother to be all that endearing.  Even the narrator owns up to some of her mother’s faults.  Both of the narrator’s parents where hoarders, and her mother was unwilling to part with even one of four waffle irons that she never used.  The narrator admits that she and her mother were both terrible at managing money, but the narrator did discover after her mother’s death that her mother had financial resources that her mother never tapped, because she did not know they existed.  For someone obviously so intelligent, this lapse just baffles me.