Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAn Astonishing Debut
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 3, 2015
Perception v. Reality. Belief v. Truth. Perhaps because we are but human and not divine, we can never kn0w truth. Nor can we know reality. We exist in a puzzle with lots of missing pieces, so it is no wonder that as a species we move through life mythologically…using our very limited perception to create a never ending series of beliefs to get us through each day. DeCarlo has captured the essence of this human phenomenon through Mattie, a young woman who steals a piece of leather (which may or may not have any value) in order to gain perceived power over a man, who believes the leather, indeed, has value, and thus subjugates himself emotionally to Mattie to retrieve his perceived lost power. Mattie believes the world, and particularly her mother, has dealt her a crappy hand…although Mattie actually has no idea at all about her mother’s truth. Mattie flees with the mythological leather strap on her road trip to reality and finds many more pieces of her personal puzzle coming ever closer to unwrapping the eclaircissement of her mother’s wandering nature.
Having worked in the field of neuropsychology for almost 30 years, I can express with fair grounding that DeCarlo has unerringly defined human relationships through Mattie, her acquaintances and their often faulty (and funny!) whispering campaigns and screaming sessions. Like life, Mattie’s cache of old, undeveloped film untimely processed decades too late leaps to light in a dark room and smashes everything Mattie thought she knew about the woman who raised her. When Mattie runs out of clothes and in desperation dons both her mother’s and her grandmother’s threads found in a closet, the mantle of motherhood is quite literally on her shoulders as well as in her swelling baby belly. Full circle, Mattie has to decide if she will follow a track similar to her mother’s and raise her child just as she was raised…or find another avenue.
DeCarlo is uncannily wise. I purchased 16 more books to give as gifts. My husband who only reads hunting and fishing magazines would not put the book down and read the whole thing in two days. As far as I know, this was a record for him. Buy this book and read it. Then ask yourself how much you know about your mother and how much you just think you know.
