Herb's charmed life with his dear wife, Susan, in their Key West house is coming undone. Susan, in her seventies, now needs constant care, and Herb is in denial about his own ailing health. The one bright spot is the arrival of an endlessly optimistic manicurist calling herself Renee. She sings to Susan during manicures, gets her to paint, and brings her a much-needed sense of contentment. But then Herb and Susan's adult children arrive to stage an...

"In this anthology of creative nonfiction, twenty-eight writers set out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person they call 'Mother.' ... Writers Lee Smith and Samia Serageldin have curated a diverse and insightful collection that challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped, for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their time....