mothers

Trigger warning for any daughter who has ever had a fraught relationship with their mother: Gish Jen’s remarkable and heartbreaking latest book, “Bad Bad Girl,” may prompt a flood of feelings not felt since adolescence. This marvel of a mash-up — part novel, part memoir, part effort to reconnect with a dead parent who never uttered an “I love you” — has as many pain points as life lessons. Quite a few of the latter — mostly delivered in the form of Chinese proverbs — are dropped by the author’s parents, Chinese immigrants who met in New York as graduate students. Among the pearls of wisdom that stick with Jen, their eldest girl and a keen observer of her parents: “When you drink the water, remember the spring.”

In this, Jen’s 10th book, she wistfully, unsparingly commemorates that “spring” — a punishing mother she nevertheless credits for “biting my heel.” A master of the art of withholding when it came to praise or affection, her mother had no compunctions about delivering ego-shattering put-downs and physical punishments to Jen for being “too smart for her own good.” And yet, Jen writes: “I have thrived.”

Gish Jen has brilliantly structured “Bad Bad Girl” so that invented exchanges with her mother keep returning us not only to the relationship between mother and daughter, but to the present.

(Basso Cannarsa)

Still, she is not at peace. Even after her mother’s death in 2020 at 96, that censorious voice remained “embedded in my most primitive responses, in my very limbic system.” “You were a mystery Ma,” Jen writes. “Why, why, why were you the way you were?” The writer’s instinct kicks in: “If I write about you, if I write to you, will I understand you better?”

“Bad Bad Girl” constitutes a heroic effort to do just that. But soon after Jen embarks on that quest, she realizes that while many mothers want their daughters to show interest in them and listen to their stories, “they were not my mother.” Without much to go on in the way of shared memories or documentary evidence, Jen decides to recalibrate. Instead of writing a straight memoir, she’ll chronicle what she can and construct a fictional narrative around the rest. The result is a heart-piercingly personal work that also imparts universal truths about the immigrant experience — and what it is to be a daughter, a mother and a woman in a world where men are the more valued of the sexes. If there is such a thing as an intimate epic, this is it.

Jen’s mother Agnes — Loo Shu-hsin, as she was originally named — was born in 1925 Shanghai to a wealthy and prominent banker and his much younger wife. In Part I, we are introduced to the lush beauty and extraordinary privilege Agnes was born into, sequestered in a mansion situated in the “international” section of Shanghai, staffed by maids, cooks, nursemaids, chauffeurs and bodyguards. “Proper though she may have been,” Agnes’ mother “did smoke opium.” Apparently, it was good for cramps.

Agnes was the firstborn child, a disappointment in her gender. As tradition dictated, her placenta was hurled into the Huangpu River; when it floated away, it was deemed that she too “would be raised and fed, only to drift away.” Agnes’ mother never bonded with her daughter and showed her little attention except to object to her daughter’s clear intelligence and closeness with her nursemaid. (By age 6 and beginning to read, Agnes still hadn’t been weaned.) By contrast, her father delighted in his daughter’s zeal for learning. The prevailing view was that “to educate a girl was like washing coal; it made no sense.” Still, her father enrolled her in an elite Catholic school where she was nurtured by Mother Greenough, a nun with a doctorate. She praised Agnes for her intellect and encouraged her to be ambitious. After completing her undergraduate studies amid the Japanese invasion and World War II, in the fall of 1947, after peace had finally descended, Agnes declared her intention to leave for the United States to pursue a PhD. Her father embraced that decision, in part because the communist takeover loomed and he hoped at least his eldest child could escape what was to come. “My favorite daughter, so smart and brave,” he pronounces, as the ship she boards sets sail for San Francisco.

Jen has brilliantly structured “Bad Bad Girl” so that invented exchanges with her mother — post-death, printed in bold type and interspersed throughout — keep returning us not only to the relationship between mother and daughter, but to the present. That dialogue is conversational and often funny, in contrast to the unfolding chronicle of Agnes’ journey as a stranger in a strange land. She finds her new countrymen puzzling in nearly every way. For example, “That was how lonely Americans were,” she observes, “that they should not only feed their dogs but walk them every day, rain or shine.”

Initially, Agnes’ spirits are bolstered by her privilege and her parents’ checks. Soon after arriving in New York City to begin graduate school, though, the money stops coming. The communist takeover is complete and, as she gradually discovers through their letters, now they seek financial support from her. Agnes, who’s never boiled an egg, sets to work typing and translating for her still-rich Chinese classmates. She meets and marries fellow student Jen Chao-Pe, and together they move into a dilapidated walk-up in Washington Heights, where Agnes learns to scrimp and save and paint her own walls. Her husband teaches her to cook. When she gets pregnant with her son, Reuben, she is laid low and takes a temporary leave of absence from school. Soon she is pregnant with Lillian, later nicknamed “Gish” for the silent film actor, and motherhood overwhelms her. Three more children come. Of the five, Gish is her least favorite, a girl every bit as clever as she was — a reminder of what she’s permanently put on the back burner. Whatever maternal feelings she has for her other children are missing when it comes to Gish, who becomes her mother’s scapegoat and punching bag.

Miraculously, Gish appears to have been mostly a happy child who excels socially and academically. After being accepted to every university she applies to, she chooses Harvard. She attends graduate school at Stanford and begins to pursue a writing career. She meets her husband, David, to whom she’s been married ever since — for 42 years. They have a son, Luke, and a daughter, Paloma. Jen’s children know how difficult their grandmother has been, and Paloma offers this to her mother by way of consolation: “The effects of trauma can’t be washed away in a generation,” something she’s read in a book. “You can’t get rid of it all, but you did a good job,” she adds.

How rich this book is, and how humane. Unlike, for example, Molly Jong-Fast’s merciless “How to Lose Your Mother,” “Bad Bad Girl” doesn’t read like a hit job. It’s suffused with love and a desire to finally understand. “You shut me out the way you shut your mother out. … What was my crime?” Jen challenges her mother in one of their imagined exchanges. “You were a pain in the neck,” Agnes observes, in another.

“She does not say ‘I love you’ back; she never has,” Jen writes. She doesn’t put those words in Agnes’ mouth here, even when she has the chance. But Jen does venture this about her mother: “I like to think (she) would finally agree both that this book is a novel and that there might be some truth to it.” And then in their final imagined exchange: “Bad, bad girl! Who says you can write a book like that?” Jen laughs. “That’s more like it.”

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

As the “Mothers of the Movement” came on stage to talk about the deaths of their children and endorse Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, chants emerged from the crowd: “Black lives matter!”

Geneva Reed-Veal, standing in a half circle with eight other black mothers, attempted to quiet the audience.

“Give me two moments to tell you how good God is. Give me a moment to say thank you,” said Reed-Veal, whose 28-year-old daughter, Sandra Bland, died in jail after being pulled over for a traffic stop in 2015. “We are not standing here because he’s not good. We are standing here because he’s great.”

What followed was one of the most powerful moments of Tuesday’s convention, as the mothers held back tears to speak about the deaths that ignited a national debate about police reform and race relations.

“So many of our children gone but not forgotten,” Reed-Veal said. “I’m here with Hillary Clinton because she is a leader and a mother who will say our children’s names. Hillary knows that when a young black life is cut short, it’s not just a personal loss. It is a national loss. It is a loss that diminishes all of us.”

The short speeches, which followed a video of Hillary Clinton meeting and praying with the mothers, who have joined her at campaign events across the country, gave the Black Lives Matter movement one of its highest-profile moments. Officially, Black Lives Matter has not endorsed a presidential candidate, but the women are among the movement’s best-known names.

The deaths have spurred hundreds of demonstrations across the U.S. over the last four years and raised the pressure on both major political parties to deal with the issue of gun violence and racial disparities.

Full convention coverage »

Mothers of African Americans killed by gun violence speak at the Democratic National Convention. More coverage at latimes.com/trailguide

“You don’t stop being a parent when your child dies,” said Lucia McBath, whose 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2012. “I am still Jordan Davis’ mother. His life ended the day he was shot and killed for playing loud music. But my job as his mother didn’t.”

“Hillary Clinton isn’t afraid to say black lives matter,” she said. “She isn’t afraid to sit at a table with grieving mothers and bear the full force of our anguish. She doesn’t build walls around her heart. Not only did she listen to our problems, she invited us to become part of the solution.”

The segment provided a window into how the Clinton campaign is responding to pressure to address race relations and police reform while acknowledging the dangers police officers face after a series of deadly shootings around the country.

Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay, who has been praised for his handling of protests in his city, introduced the mothers after saying Americans should “respect and support our police officers while at the same time pushing for these important criminal justice reforms.”

Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, said that while she “didn’t want this spotlight” she would do everything she could “to focus some of that light on a path out of this darkness.”

Fulton praised Clinton for having “courage to lead the fight for common-sense gun legislation” and a “plan to repair the divide that so often exists between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”

Day Two of the Democratic National Convention in less than 3 minutes. Full coverage at latimes.com/trailguide

The speakers included:

Fulton, the mother of 17-year-old Martin, who died after being shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. A jury acquitted Zimmerman of all charges related to Martin’s death on July 13, 2013.

Lezley McSpadden, the mother of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson, Mo., police officer on Aug. 9, 2014. The shooting caused days of unrest in the St. Louis suburb, raising questions about police use of military equipment and bringing scrutiny to the issue of racial disparities between police and the communities where they work. On November 21, 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson in Brown’s death.

See the most-read stories in National News this hour >>

Gwen Carr, the mother of 43-year-old Eric Garner, who died after a police officer put him a chokehold in Staten Island, N.Y., on July 17, 2014. In a bystander video that went viral, Garner can be heard repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe,” while being restrained by police. The phrase became a protest mantra, especially after a jury decided to not indict the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, on Dec. 13, 2014. The Department of Justice is currently investigating the case.

Reed-Veal, the mother of 28-year-old Bland, who was found hanged with a trash bag in a Waller County, Texas, jail on July 13, 2015. Three days before, Bland was stopped for a traffic violation and got into an argument with the state trooper who stopped her, resulting in her arrest. After a dash-cam video was released, a Bland family lawyer argued that the officer did not have probable cause for the stop. Family members disputed a medical examiner’s ruling that her death was a suicide. In December 2015, a grand jury decided not to indict her jailers in connection with Bland’s death. The trooper is facing a misdemeanor charge.

Lucia McBath, mother of 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who was shot by Michael Dunn in Jacksonville, Fla., on Nov. 12, 2012. The shooting occurred after Dunn, who is white, complained that the music Davis and his friends were playing in their car was too loud, and an argument ensued. After a first trial ended in a mistrial, Dunn, a software developer, was found guilty of first-degree murder.

Maria Hamilton, the mother of Dontré Hamilton, who was fatally shot by a white police officer in Milwaukee on April 30, 2014. Protests ensued after charges were not brought against the officer, Christopher Manney.

Cleopatra Pendleton-Cowley, the mother of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who was shot by two gang members in a Chicago park on Jan. 29, 2013. The shooters were arrested and charged with first-degree murder, and First Lady Michelle Obama attended Pendleton’s funeral.

Annette Nance-Holt, the mother of 16-year-old Blair Holt, who died on a Chicago Transit Authority bus in May 2007 after trying to shield a friend from a gang member’s shots.

Wanda Johnson, the mother of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who died after being shot by a white Bay Area Rapid Transit officer on New Year’s Day in 2009. The officer, Johannes Mehserle, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison in 2010. Mehserle received credit for time already served and was released on June 13, 2011.

Notably absent was Samaria Rice, the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who died in November 2014 after being shot by police in Cleveland while he played in a park with a replica pellet gun. Rice has declined to endorse Clinton or Trump.

No candidate is “speaking my language about police reform,” Samaria Rice recently told Fusion, saying she wants “a lot on the table, not a little bit of talk, a lot of talk about police brutality, police accountability, making new policies, taking some away, and just reforming the whole system.”

She has also been critical of President Obama.

“He may mention something about it, but he’s not really going to go into details about it and hold the government responsible for killing innocent people,” she said in the same interview, echoing similar criticisms from some activists.

Even before their speeches, the appearance of the Mothers of the Movement had caused controversy. The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police said its members were “shocked and saddened” that widows of fallen police officers were not included in the lineup.

“It is sad that to win an election, Mrs. Clinton must pander to the interests of people who do not know all the facts, while the men and women they seek to destroy are outside protecting the political institutions of this country,” the police group said in a statement.

The mothers aren’t strangers to the campaign trail. Several have been featured in a Clinton TV ad that aired in Chicago and St. Louis and the campaign has also covered their airfares to Democratic debates.

Not all the family members of black Americans who have died in high-profile police-involved incidents have been Clinton supporters. Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, has been a strong supporter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Still, Tuesday’s group represented one of the strongest lineups of black activists involved in any recent presidential campaign campaign.

“We must bring awareness.… Don’t wait until tragedy knocks on your door,” Carr said in a recent ABC News segment on her support of Clinton, which also addressed violence against police.

“This is a bad time to be a good cop in this country,” Reed-Veal said in the same segment. “OK? We need to remember they have lives too.”

[email protected]

Jaweed Kaleem is The Times’ national race and justice correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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UPDATES:

7:35 p.m.: This article was updated with more details about the speeches.

6:20 p.m.: This article was updated after the women spoke.

This article was originally published at 4:40 p.m.

Diane Kruger and Jo Joyner head up a stellar cast in this new psychological thriller now on Paramount+

You know those smug, perfect mums? How well do you really know them? What if they’re not that perfect after all? Little Disasters, airing today (Thursday 22 May) on Paramount+, is a deliciously gripping psychological thriller. Based on the novel by Sarah Vaughan, it follows a group of four women whose friendship implodes.

When Jess (Diane Kruger) takes her baby to hospital with an unexplained head injury, her close friend and on-duty A&E doctor Liz (Jo Joyner) must make the excruciating decision of whether to call social services.

It starts with Jess taking her screaming baby to hospital. It’s A&E on a Friday night and only Liz is available to check baby Betsy. When Liz finds a significant bump on Betsy’s head, she asks Jess what happened – but Jess is sketchy on the details. “She slipped,” she says. Turns out the 10-month-old has a skull fracture and significant bruising. The action flashes back to when she and Jess met 11 years ago at a class for expectant mums, along with two other women.

Exploring themes of motherhood and friendship, the series looks at what happens to this group of women after Liz sets off a catastrophic chain of events. Liz says: “I always thought that Jess was the perfect mother, but then something happens, some little disaster and suddenly you ask yourself, what else is she hiding?” Also starring Shelley Conn, Emily Taaffe, Stephen Campbell Moore, Ben Bailey Smith, Patrick Baladi, Robert Gilbert, Chizzy Akudolu and JJ Feild, this thriller will have you questioning everything. All six episodes are now available to binge.

*Little Disasters is airing now on Paramount+

There’s plenty more on TV tonight – here’s the best of the rest..

THE HORNE SECTION TV SHOW, CHANNEL 4, 10pm

Riotous, wacky, sublimely silly, this sitcom revels in taking a swipe at popular culture and definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously. Written by and starring Alex Horne, with an appearance from his real life wife Rachel, playing his wife (who else!), this is a second run for the quirky comedy.

Struggling with his newfound fame, the pressures of filming live from his family home, and a subsequent lack of money, Alex is determined to prove to the nation that he’s a credible leader of his band, while trying not to be overshadowed by the real musicians he works with.

It starts with an unsuccessful appearance on Sunday Brunch, during which Alex is irritated by the presence of ‘proper musician’, James Corden’s band leader Reggie Watts. Producer Thora (Desiree Burch) then books Reggie as a guest on The Horne Section TV Show, while C4 exec Ash (Georgia Tennant) commissions talent contest, World’s Strongest Musician, which gives Alex a chance to prove himself. Or not.

NINE PERFECT STRANGERS, PRIME VIDEO

Nicole Kidman returns as the creepy, mysterious wellness guru Masha, who has invited nine new strangers to a transformational retreat in the Austrian Alps. With her ageless face, white blonde hair and bewitching eyes, Nicole is made for this role and this is another thrill-ride of a series.

The nine people have been chosen under bizarre circumstances for a healing retreat – they think they’re heading off to a spa, but they are connected in ways they could never imagine. Over the course of a week, Masha takes them to the brink. She says: “I invited you all here because sometimes you shouldn’t deal with pain gently.”

The first series included vials of blood and digging your own grave, so we know that something sinister is definitely going on. An excellent cast includes Henry Golding, Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Lucas Englander, Murray Bartlett, Mark Strong and Aras Aydin. “You have to trust me,” says Masha. They definitely shouldn’t…

EMMERDALE, ITV1, 7.30pm

With Mack being ostracised by sister Moira and mortified over his actions, he backs out of being Aaron’s best man. Belle tells Sam that Nate never arrived at his job in the Shetlands. Suspicious, Belle vows to get to the bottom of his sudden disappearance. John pushes a flashback of Nate’s dead body out of his mind and focuses on relaxing. Sarah slips away to her hospital appointment alone where she’s forced to face her potential cancer diagnosis.

EASTENDERS, BBC1, 7.30pm

Stacey leaves the house for the first time in weeks. However, Kat is concerned when Stacey invites them for a big family meal, fearing that she’s trying to do too much too soon.

Everything comes crashing down later when Stacey realises that her coat and mobile phone have accidentally fallen into the laundry bag and Freddie has taken everything to be washed. The phone contains voicemails, photos and texts from Martin and if the phone is damaged, they will be lost forever.

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