The End of Eve: A Memoir
Gore (Bluebird, 2010) has written about happiness and motherhood before. This book is about both seen  from a very different and personal perspective. Specifically, it is about the end of her mother’s life and how Gore gives up, if not everything, then quite a lot to make her mother’s last days as peaceful, even happy, as possible, even as Gore has to deal with monotonous paperwork and all the other complicated problems associated with end-of-life issues. Gore’s relationship with her mother was never easy. Eve could be difficult and prone to temper tantrums. Far from being morose, though, this is a darkly humorous and at times even insanely cheerful account, launched by her mother’s  nonchalant announcement that she has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Eve, Gore, and Gore’s  partner move into a big house in New Mexico, where Gore has visions of their unconventional household turning into something that is part Terms of Endearment, part Grey Gardens, and part Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Altogether, a quiet, funny, unsentimental portrait of caregiving and bearing witness. --June Sawyers