My Mother Is Now Earth

by Mark Anthony Rolo

". . . the memory of my mother came to me like a drifting scent in the breeze, swirling through the branches of a nearby cedar tree. I was drawn back [35 years] to the day I learned she had passed on. But that autumn day of 1973 did not grip me with deep sadness, the burden of never seeing her again. I was looking at that day from a new angle, a distant view that seemed to suggest a new, untold story. I was suddenly more than curious about who my mother truly was in this life and beyond."

Uprooted from family and community in Milwaukee by her husband, a French and Irish construction worker with a drinking problem, Corrine Rolo struggles to raise their seven children on a remote farm near Big Falls, Minnesota. She longs to move back to Milwaukee, or to visit her relatives on the Bad River Ojibwe reservation, at one point threatening to leave the older kids behind and return to her home in the city.

Mark Anthony Rolo sifts through potent dreams and childhood memories to recreate a picture of his often conflicted mother during the last three years of her life. She told him a few warm stories of her life on the reservation, but she participated in the family's casually derogatory banter about their Ojibwe heritage. She spent little time helping Rolo with his schoolwork, even as she wrote voluminous, detailed letters to her family in Milwaukee. She could treat her children harshly and yet also display the fiercest love.

With an innocent and sometimes brutal child's view, Rolo recounts stories of a woman who battles poverty, depression, her abusive husband, and isolation through the long northern Minnesota winters, and of himself, her son, who struggles at school, wrestles with his Ojibwe identity, and copes with violence. But he also shows, with eloquence and compassion, his adult understanding of his mother's fight to live with dignity, not despair.

Genres: Memoir

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Marianne Zarzana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Anthony Rolo's heartbreaking memoir, "My Mother Is Now Earth," honors his mother's difficult life by telling stories that make the ordinary shine.

With vivid, earthy images of small-town life in northern Minnesota, Rolo transports us to Big Falls and invites us into his large family circle, which has been fractured by his white father's alcoholism and the geographical displacement of his Ojibwe mother from her family and reservation. His mother's fierce, loving heart beats at the center of this circle, but she struggles with loneliness after moving to Big Falls, disconnected from her sisters in Milwaukee and conflicted about her Native American ancestry.

Rolo weaves a beautiful and painful story with the bright threads of acceptance, compassion, and humor. The book has been nominated for a 2013 Minnesota Book Award in memoir and creative nonfiction. I hope it wins so it can gain the much wider audience it deserves.

[CTEP]

For the month of July, I read the book My Mother is Now Earth by Mark Anthony Rolo. It is a memoir of Rolo's family and their move from Milwaukee, WI to Big Falls, MN in 1971. The book spans 3 years and is told from Rolo's point of view when he was a young boy. He describes his 6 brothers and sisters, his alcoholic father, and his Chippewa mother as all adjust to life in northern Minnesota; it should be noted that there were also 3 additional siblings that were left behind in Milwaukee, 2 in the foster system. They all moved to Big Falls because Rolo’s father had a dream of becoming a farmer that he was set on pursuing. As a result, the children had to change schools and the mother was isolated from her sisters in Milwaukee and the Bad River Band of Chippewa of which she was a part. The book chronicles life on the farm and the ups and downs of living in Bad River.

Rolo does an incredible job weaving his poetic language to tell his story, a story that is centered on the life and death of his mother. The story is laden with the language of Native American folk tales and natural imagery, which make it absolutely captivating. Rolo talked a lot about his Chippewa lineage through the mention of land payments, discrimination, and the standoff in Wounded Knee, SD.

Being someone who was very unsettled and unpleasantly surprised my junior year of college to hear about the horrible discrimination that still goes on with Native Americans, I am always interested in filling in the gaps in my mind’s history of the struggle they have gone through. I still get really upset that all American children are taught in school about Native Americans is in regards to Sacagawea and the white settlers. It was also really interesting to hear an account of a family moving from urban lower middle class to rural poverty in Minnesota and the adaptations they had to make. I am able to relate this to my service because of the elements of semi-local poverty and the dynamics that were dictated regarding a mixed ethnic identity.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m giving this memoir five stars because of the way it moved me.
I read this book because it was mentioned in another book I recently read, Medicine River. Its author, Dr Mary Annette Pember, used as her starting point, the impact Indian boarding schools had on her mother.

Mark Anthony Rolo is Bad River Ojibway of Wisconsin. His mother died when he was ten, and he writes of the last three years of her life.

Something is so radically wrong with our system when a family has to live the way Mark’s family did.

I wept at several points in this story. It touched me.

I do not know what to do with these feelings.

[Ashlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loves this book! Small town I grew up in, in Northern MN! Love hearing local places and names! Great memoir!

[Natalie Cherne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful love letter from a son to his mother. It leaves you wondering what our parents did for us to shield us.

[Jane Dickerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoirs are tricky-- how to speak from the present about the past without straining credulity. This book navigated safely after the first section of early childhood and a move to Big Falls, MN, from Milwaukee, WI. Rolo's gift for dialogue is outstanding. Story is about his father's alcoholism, the longings of his mother, and his family's coping on an isolated and failed farm. Looking forward to seeing what else Mr. Rolo can do. This book is a finalist for a 2013 MN Book Award. http://www.thefriends.org/programs/mn...

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rolo reads like poetry, writes like his soul is on fire, and acts like an Indian: understatement is the key. He manages to memorialize his mother by talking all around her, not about her. In the end it is her that the reader sees, which is exactly as he intended.

I learned a lot about Native American culture, family relationships, needs and lore, so he managed to educate as well, without the reader knowing what he was up to. It was a little hard to keep all the brother's names straight, but that was part of the point, too. Highly recommended.

[Holly Ristau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book. It's the true story of a young boy living in poverty with a large family in a remote area of Minnesota. Even though you know it's going to be about the death of his mother, it's not dramatic. It's all very matter-of-fact, just as a young boy would see it. Although it didn't win the Minnesota book award, I really think it should have.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story paints a loving portrait of transformation and healing that transcends the bleak dysfunction and poverty of the author's childhood. In writing this memoir he honors his mother's memory with his great love and deep, long lasting grief at her passing. Hauntingly beautiful and poetic tribute.

[Leah Delack · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read. Setting takes place in Big Falls, MN. Local names, places, and situations used.
I laughed at the birthday party scene, and had strong visuals of people and local area.
Enjoyed the book - told through the eyes of Mr. Rolo.

[Becky Loader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rolo writes about growing up poor and Native American in the 1970's with aching realism. The portrait of his mother, with all her faults and all her strengths, is stirring. I finished this in one day.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad and haunting read, but also enjoyable. I was struck by the child narrator's realistic point of view and Rolo's ability to tell his story truthfully and without sentiment or melancholy was impressive. I was especially moved by the narrator's dreams of his mother near the end of the book.

[Brian Higgin-houser]

Nice meshing of Northern MN and Native Am. people.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully written. Honest, painful. Hope to see this author write again.