Word: sexton
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Gray Sexton's memoirs narrowly escape these fates. The relationship between the author and her mother is not presented solely as a sensational aberration in family dynamics. Their story takes on a larger role than pure titillation. In a world full of codependence and dysfunction, the Sexton saga is proof that demons will rest and that people can move...
Writing in a loose chronology beginning with the birth of the author and ending in the present, Gray Sexton uses memory, dreams and her mother's poetry to broadly reconstruct a history of milestones and events in the two women's lives. Presented in tandem, their histories illustrate a destructive cycle of abandonment and dependence, a pattern which plagued the Sexton family and, perhaps to a lesser extent, plagues the American family today...
Sent off to relatives as a baby, Gray Sexton's recalls being "abandoned" by her mother at an early age. In probably the longest case of post-partum depression, the poet-to-be insisted for years that she was unable to take care of her daughters (the author has a sister, Joy, two years her junior), claiming at times that she hated them and even desired to kill them. This feeling of dismissal was only punctuated by the indifference and/or actual abuse Gray Sexton met in her different foster homes...
This period of their relationship lapsed into an even more destructive one in which "Mother", as Gray Sexton refers to her, insisted on becoming intimate and close with her daughter. Their relationship wore many masks during this period. At times there was complete role-reversal in which Anne looked to Linda for mothering and nurturing. At age 10, Linda was ordered to come home from summer camp prematurely in order to take care of mommy. At other instances, Anne acted as if the two were both adult girlfriends as she would discuss her adulterous affairs with her daughter even encouraging...
With Gray Sexton's late adolescence came a certain awakening and a desire to "abandon" her mother. Fortunately, she was able to escape to Harvard and distance herself from the chaotic hold of her mother's constant need for attention and care. As a busy student, Gray Sexton found herself ignoring her mother's phone calls and obvious cries for help. Chronic depression, loneliness and alcoholism were taking their toll on her mother, but Gray Sexton, exhausted from care-giving, was compelled to remain distant. She writes, "in the last months of my mother's life I chose to ignore...