THE MANY MOTHERS OF IVY PUDDINGSTONE by Randy Susan Meyers - Spotlight

 

What if saving the world means not saving your child?

Seven Children. Five Mothers. One idyllic commune. What could go wrong?

Annabel Cooper wants to save the world. Her story begins in 1964 with her journey to Freedom Summer in Mississippi, where the disappearance of her first love ignites a lifelong fight for justice. 

Years later, she, her husband, and four other couples form a Boston political collective where they live together with their children in a rambling Boston house. 

As the era's social upheaval intensifies, they move their children to a Vermont Eden, where they can remain safe from the world's threats; their parents continue their political work, taking turns traveling to Vermont to care for the children.

But not all danger comes from the outside.

Annabel's daughter, Ivy, yearns for normalcy, not the patchouli-soaked, natural-food-laden confines of Vermont. But mostly, she longs for Annabel's attention-until a cataclysmic event alters the course of all their lives and she learns the limits of her many mothers and fathers.

The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone delves into the intricate and nuanced dance of familial love and communal ties through the lens of sociopolitical upheaval from the 1960s to the present day, examining which sacrifices are worth the price.

For me, writing transmogrifies fact into fiction, and thus, soothes my soul.

I used to play a song for my daughters, from Free to Be You and Me, that swore that crying got the sad out of you. That’s kind of what writing does for me—it gets the sad, the mad, and the glad out of me.

Writing calms me. Writing excites me. Writing sorts out my world.

And writing lets me tell stories.

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