Please
enjoy this guest post by Phil Jourdan, author of the touching memoir,
Praise of Motherhood. Then read on to learn how
you can win huge prizes as part of this blog tour, including $500 in
Amazon gift cards and 5 autographed copies of the book.
The Story behind this Real-Life Story
by Phil Jourdan
Back in late 2009, when I began working
on Praise of Motherhood, I had envisioned a book
very different from what I ended up submitting to my publisher. I'd
just lost the woman who'd raised me, and when I wasn't sitting around
numb and brooding, I was frantically trying to contain the universe
of loss and suffering in a single Word document on my laptop.
I wanted to write a book that expressed
the impossibility of letting go. We're often told, when someone close
to us dies, that we have to move on, that things will get better. I
couldn't accept this back then: I didn't think it was possible to let
go of my mother, who had been so patient and kind during my weird
teenage years.
The first two versions were entirely
different from each other in form and tone, but they did have a
certain delight in chaos in common. I was mourning the only way I
knew how: by adopting a hundred different voices, each trying to say
something about my mother that the others couldn't say. One chapter
was pure dialogue; another was a series of letters; for a while I
wrote in breathless page-long paragraphs because it was the only way
I could feel "honest" about what I felt. I'd swing from
rage to self-pity to sadness to bliss to sheer bafflement.
It was only when I decided to turn this
book into something that others could actually read without going
insane that I figured out how to structure a book like this. I cut a
great number chapters because they were "honest" but
unhelpful. I tried to make myself a sort of antagonist, so my
mother's qualities as a human being could be emphasized. I left
things relatively ambiguous instead of offering anything like words
of wisdom to my readers. I tried to leave the book as open as the
wound that stayed after my mother died.
This has irritated some people. They
ask why I don't provide a real sense of what my mother was like on a
day-to-day basis, or why I focused so much on how she affected my
life instead of just writing about her, as a person in her own right.
Fair questions — but I never set out to just "write about my
mom". I wanted to write about the struggle of losing her, and
what made losing her so painful. That's why I ask questions in the
book that I never really answer: because I was never able to answer
them myself. They are questions that will remain.
Praise of Motherhood
isn't a book praising all mothers across all ages. It's not meant to
praise the idea of "motherhood" itself as some glorious
ideal. I wrote this book because I wanted to transmit something of my
mother to those who didn't know her; those who, perhaps, need to hear
that it's okay to say you love your mommy and you wish she could
still be here when you feel like crying.
As
part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel
Publicity, the price of the Praise of Motherhood eBook
edition is just 99 cents this week. What’s more, by purchasing this
fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many
awesome prizes. The prizes include $500 in
Amazon gift cards and 5 autographed copies of the book.
All the info you need to win one of
these amazing prizes is RIGHT HERE. Remember, winning
is as easy as clicking a button or leaving a blog comment--easy to
enter; easy to win!
To win the
prizes:
About the book:
Praise of Motherhood is a son's
tribute to the woman who not only gave him life, but helped him live:
through various psychotic breakdowns, tumultuous teenage years, and
years of feeling out of place in the world. Get
it on Amazon or Barnes &
Noble.
About the author:
Phil Jourdan fronts the lit-rock
band Paris and the Hiltons, runs the fiction press Perfect Edge
Books, and occasionally works on a PhD.
Visit
Phil on his blog, music site, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.
1 comment:
I enjoyed reading Phil's story behind the story. Whenever I read a memoir, I like to go and find out more about the author afterwards and find out more about them. Reading Phil's blog and other articles such as this, helped me to understand the book even more after reading it. My favorite line is where he says - "I tried to leave the book as open as the wound that stayed after my mother died." I think he accomplished this.
~ Leila
Post a Comment