Glitter and Glue: A Memoir

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From theauthor of The Middle Place comes a new memoir that examines the bondsometimes nourishing, sometimes exasperating, occasionally divinebetween mothers and daughters.

When Kelly Corrigan was in high school, her mother neatly summarized the family dynamic as Your fathers the glitter but Im the glue. This meant nothing to Kelly, who left childhood sure that her momwith her inviolable commandments and proud stoicismwould be nothing more than background chatter for the rest of Kellys life, which she was carefully orienting toward adventure. After college, armed with a backpack, her personal mission statement, and a wad of travelers checks, she took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting.

But it didnt turn out the way she pictured it. In a matter of months, her savings shot, she had a choice: get a job or go home. Thats how Kelly met John Tanner, a newly widowed father of two looking for a live-in nanny. They chatted for an hour, discussed timing and pay, and a week later, Kelly moved in. And there, in that house in a suburb north of Sydney, 10,000 miles from the house where she was raised, her mothers voice was suddenly everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked. Every day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, straining to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its spiral.

This is a book about the difference between travel and life experience, stepping out and stepping up, fathers and mothers. But mostly its about who you admire and why, and how that changes over time.

Praise for Glitter and Glue

I loved this book, I was moved by this book, and now I will share this book with my own motheralong with my renewed appreciation for certain debts of love that can never be repaid.Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love

Kelly Corrigans thoughtful and beautifully rendered meditation invites readers to reflect on their own launchings and homecomings. I accepted the invitation and learned things about myself. You will, too. Isnt that why we read?Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Water

Kelly Corrigan is no stranger to mining the depths of her heart. . . . [In]Glitter and Glue,Corrigan turns the microscope on her relationship with her own mother. . . . Through her own experience of caring for children, she begins, for the first time, to appreciate the complex woman who raised her.O: The Oprah Magazine

Corrigan [is] a lively, nimble cheerleader for the joys of family.People

[A] funny, sparkling memoir.More

Corrigan writes with warmth and delicate humor.The Washington Post

[An] irresistible cocktail of lyrical writing and solid, useful insight.San Francisco Chronicle

In this endearing, funny, and thought-provoking memoir, Kelly Corrigans memories of long-ago adventures illuminate the changing relationships between mothers and childrenas well as everything else that really matters.Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project