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Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother

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FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

In 1977, Priscila Uppal's father drank contaminated water in Antigua and within 48 hours was a quadriplegic. Priscila was two years old. Five years later, her mother, Theresa, drained the family's bank accounts and disappeared to Brazil. After two attempts to abduct her children, Theresa had no further contact with the family.

In 2002, Priscila happened on her mother's website, which featured a childhood photograph of Priscila and her brother. A few weeks later, Priscila summoned the nerve to contact the woman who'd abandoned her.

The emotional reunion was alternately shocking, hopeful, humorous, and devastating, as Priscila came to realize that not only did she not love her mother, she didn't even like her.

Projection is a visceral, precisely written, brutally honest memoir that takes a probing look at a very unusual mother-daughter relationship, yet offers genuine comfort to all facing their own turbulent and unresolved familial relationships.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

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About the author

Priscila Uppal

33 books11 followers
Priscila Uppal was a Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright. poet, academic, and professor of Humanities and English at the undergraduate and graduate levels at York University. She was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Toronto Arts Council. Her creative and academic interests frequently intersected and she has published work that explores the tensions and dynamics between women (particularly in closed societies: schools, nunneries), the nature of human violence, sexuality (including infertility), multicultural clashes (ethnic, religious, geographical), revisionist mythmaking (classical myth, biblical myth, historical figures), illness (physical, psychological, cultural), mourning rituals and the expression of grief (towards individuals, communities, abstract concepts), the world of readers and the dangers and benefits of reading and the imagination, the world of sport and sport aesthetics, as well as the nature of the artistic process, among other things.

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5 stars
42 (23%)
4 stars
64 (35%)
3 stars
49 (27%)
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18 (10%)
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7 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
458 reviews6 followers
October 21, 2015
This is by far one of the best memoirs I have ever read! This is one of those books that will stand out in my memory for it's amazing writing and unbelievable story. Priscila Uppal's memoir about her childhood and the relationship with her parents is searing, raw, honest and heartbreaking. Stories like this, written as beautifully as this one is, are a gift to the reader. The fact that Priscila Uppal is a poet only enhances the writing and the emotion that comes spewing out of every page.
Profile Image for Angela.
86 reviews10 followers
February 3, 2014
This book, being a memoir, is so intensely personal that I hesitate to criticize it. Uppal needed to write this as a way of dealing with her incredible loss. So. First the good: I really enjoyed the movie format, themes and comparisons. I was impressed by the candour. I'm always awed and amazed by people can use the creative process as a means of healing. But.

I felt really creepy reading about how horrible Uppal's mother is. She's fat, manipulative, insane, selfish, bulky, hateful. She waddles, talks too much, wears ugly clothing, is delusional. She's a monster. I think the author could have SHOWN her readers these aspects instead of TELLING. We would have got that message just from the actions and the words of the mother. Something felt really wrong about it. It reminded me of another book called Sickened by Julie Gregory. Gregory had a horrific childhood (at the hands of her mother as well) and like Uppal, she doesn't stick to the abuse and harm but tells us all about her mother's terrible taste and unrelated personal habits. Both books seem to veer to the side of vindictive and bitter, even if they started out as creative projects on the path of healing.

Based on that, I wouldn't recommend this book, as much as I admire Uppal's surviving with a great deal of career success.
Profile Image for Natalie.
23 reviews1 follower
March 17, 2014
I can't deny that Priscila Uppal is a gifted writer, but I do think she very much needs the trauma therapy she claims would not help her and is unnecessary. Good memoir is not a therapy session for the writer; good memoir comes after the writer has come to understand what has happened to her, processed it and let things go. What came through for me in this book was the author's (justifiable) anger and hurt towards her mother. It would have been a better book if she'd dealt with those feelings before writing. Instead I feel like I am listening to the voice of a hurt child raging about her mother, as if I were in the therapist's chair.

There's no denying Priscila's mother was a narcissistic horror show, but I wish the author had been able to go deeper than that. Halfway through the book, I was already tired of hearing about how awful her mother was, and wondered why Priscila didn't just fly home to Canada instead of allowing Theresa to continue to abuse her emotionally.
Profile Image for Alexis.
Author 7 books147 followers
January 13, 2014
An absolutely amazing memoir written by Priscila Uppal, who was abandoned by her mother when she was 8 years old. Uppal is reunited with her mother, who has MEGA issues, 20 years later. This is the story of a reunion that does not go well, framed by cinema and movies. It's wonderfully written, moving, honest and brave. I read it in one sitting.
Profile Image for Patricia.
629 reviews4 followers
November 23, 2013
An intriquing memoir that has left me with many feelings. I wish you the best, Priscila Uppal. It took courage to write this. Strangely enough I also wish Theresa the best but for very different reasons.
Profile Image for Marilyn.
771 reviews2 followers
March 6, 2022
Memoir about Priscila meeting her mother 20 years after she left the family. Priscilla’s father became a quadriplegic when she was 3 and then her mother left when she was 8. Her father, brother and her struggled afterwards and she had no desire to meet her mother until she found her website accidentally. Her mother was now living in Brazil and after contacting her, Priscila goes there for a 2 week visit. The visit does not go well and Priscila is left to sort out all the emotions it brings up.

This was a very interesting memoir. I liked the way the author structured it with different chapters related to different movies. Both her and her mother are fond of movies and she explained how each movie related to their relationship.

The book has a tragic feel to it as her parents lives were not what they expected them to be after her dad’s accident. She does not attempt to diagnose her mother but it seems clear that mental illness is present.

I often think about what makes people do the things they do so I was quite fascinated by this story. I wish we heard a bit more about Priscila’s relationship with her father as that also seemed interesting. Overall, I’m glad I read it and think it will be helpful for others to read about the messiness of a real reunion rather than the perfect ones you see in movies.
Profile Image for Dna.
655 reviews34 followers
October 13, 2020
I should be fascinated, seeing as how my own relationship with my mother is fraught with issues and complications...but this was bleak and dull, despite Uppal's obvious talent for writing. I've read and loved her fiction, but cannot drag myself through this. Uppal, rightfully so, seems to hate her mother -- who is clearly a damaged narcissist. I really wanted to see this book through to the end, at least for some resolution, but two weeks dragging through one quarter of the book and I've had enough.

10 reviews
May 3, 2021
Author’s way of storytelling is so good. I suggest you publish your book in NovelStar, a lot of readers will love your work.
Profile Image for heidi.
394 reviews1 follower
March 14, 2017
I appreciated the vulnerability and raw candor as Uppal wrote her story of meeting her mother after her mother ran away 20 years earlier. Uppal is a phenomenal survivor who is remarkably whole despite being abandoned by a mentally ill "mother".
11 reviews1 follower
September 10, 2016
Bizarre book. This is a memoir that centres around a two week visit that the author has with the mother who abandoned her when she was eight years old. One can't help but sympathize with the children who were left in the care of a severely disabled father and had to not only raise themselves but look after him. So Ms. Uppal, who is Dr Uppal by now I am sure, can be forgiven for the negativity toward her mother that she demonstrates from the moment she lays eyes on her. She finds her mother's physical appearance disgusting. She describes her as fat,pasty faced and frizzy haired. She keeps reminding us of all this but she also includes a number of photos taken during this visit and Mom looks just fine to me. Not as slim as a twenty year old but for fifty something I'd say she's not doing too badly at all.

But of course it is not so much her mother's appearance that upsets Uppal but the complete indifference she shows toward her daughter and her lack of curiosity about what she has been doing in the twenty years that have elapsed since they were last together. All the mother wants to do is brag about how marvelous she is.

What this young author seems not to realize is that she has written the story in a way that suggests that the apple did not fall far from the tree. Uppal blows her own horn incessantly. She recounts her straight A's and the athletic accolades she earned, her publications and her university teaching position. She tells us over and over about the jobs she took to support herself as a teen, the high regard her many accomplishments inspired in all who met her. Meanwhile the only interest she shows in her mother's professional life is to wonder how to compare it to her own. Is the Brazilian system less rigorous? She seems to hope so because otherwise it sounds like her mother has accomplished a lot of the same things she has. Does she ask her mom about this? No.

Uppal knows from the time she arrives that her mother has been undergoing treatment for cancer. It seems she still has the port for her chemo treatments in her chest. How serious is this situation? What kind of cancer has she had? What sort of treatment did she undergo? Has it been successful? Has it been completed? Did Uppal not care enough to ask or did it simply not occur to her that her reader might be interested?

Uppal decided she didn't much like her mother. I can empathize with that but I didn't much like the book or the author as she portrayed herself either. It read like a tedious case study of two narcissists.
Which brings me to the title. "Projection..." Was I too cursory in my reading? Was the author aware? Did she intentionally paint her mother's indifference as a projection of her own? Possibly. Still it was hard to engage with anyone in the narrative and I was happy to put the book down once I had struggled to the end.
274 reviews19 followers
June 1, 2014
Priscila Uppal's father became a quadriplegic unexpectedly and almost instantly. After a few years of enduring a lowered living standard, losing social status and caring for her husband's basic needs, Priscila's mother returned to Brazil from Canada and abandoned her children and husband. For 7 years, until she was 15, Priscila looked after her father and brother while still attending school.

Her mother made two attempts to abduct the children. Fortunately she was not successful.

Her father was physically traumatized; her mother was psychologically traumatized by the accident to the extent of throwing the typewriter and Priscila down the stairs and once in anger inserting the urine tube to drain into her husband's mouth.

As a result, neither Priscila nor her brother sought any relationship with her mother or their family.

However she accidentally came across a Facebook post of her mother in Brazil and decided to see her.

The book is the story of this brief encounter during which Priscila begins to understand the depths of mental illness in her mother's family (the men called most of the women in the family crazy) and realizes that her mother lives in a dream world in which her happiness is determined by her imagination. Ultimately she is told by her mother that she will forget her as soon as she gets on the plane to return to Canada.

This book deals with the process by which, in a few days, Priscila understands the complexity of her mother's mental delusions and begins to heal. Her mother and another sister have had no relationships with their children for decades. Only one sister has normal family relationships. Her trip helps her to understand why she will live with her boyfriend for years but refuse to be married and why she will never have babies.

It is an interesting journey of understanding abnormal human behavior.

It is unusual because she comes to understanding by comparing her situation to films and books. If you are not familiar with this material, it can be difficult to see the connections that she makes.

It has a real-life description of cities in Brazil, much different from standard tourist descriptions which might serve as a warning to travelers to take care in everything from getting taxis to shopping... pickpockets, crime, kidnapping, poverty... not the stuff you get in tourist brochures.

But the book is overall not very interesting. Too much detail about every relative she met and their impressions. Perhaps every encounter helped her, but we did not need to know everything. So it got to be a bit tedious and boring.
Profile Image for Elisabeth.
1,964 reviews
January 12, 2014
Someone recommended this book to me, otherwise I wouldn't have read it. Quite an interesting book, beautifully written, but what a harrowing story.

Backstory: as young children, Priscila and her older brother Jit were living in Ottawa with their beautiful Brazilian mother and handsome public servant Sikh father...then, when Priscila was two, her father was suddenly paralyzed (due to drinking some polluted water) and became a quadriplegic; their mother tried to care for him, and them, for about five years, then abandoned them when Priscila was eight. Priscila and Jit had to care for their father, still got top marks in school, had somewhat tumultous teen years. Priscila became a published poet and a professor... then accidentally found her mother's website and got in touch again.

That is where this book actually starts: it is the story of visiting her mother in Brazil. Trying to create a relationship with the person her mother is now, and to figure out what kind of woman could abandon her children that way. And what a person! I won't try to summarize here - that is the picture the book was written to paint. Suffice it to say that I have never encountered anyone like this, to my knowledge.

I did enjoy the book and found it quite a good read - almost a page-turner. Uppal is an excellent writer and certainly uses the experience to explore some complex themes. She wrote the book seven years after that visit, which is likely how long it took her to digest the experience and come to grips with it.
Profile Image for Barbara McVeigh.
667 reviews13 followers
November 2, 2013
While I was reading Projection, I thought about a course I took long ago. Some of the texts dealt with “mother-want”. At the time, we read these books as feminist texts where a woman who grows up without a mother has a better chance of becoming an independent, successful artist because without a mother there is no one there to teach her how to conform to a woman’s role.

Priscila Uppal has indeed grown up into a strong, independent artist after being abandoned by her mother when Priscila was eight years old. Despite the promises of feminist analysis, Uppal shows that “Motherlessness in my situation was far too closely equated with lovelessness.”

Projection made me think about the books I had read twenty years ago in a new light:

• “When mothers fail us, can we be ourselves?” -Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• “Oh mama, why’d you put this hole in me?” -Heroine by Gail Scott

Priscila Uppal’s book is an angry look at the mother who betrayed her. She cannot discover what would have happened if her mother had stayed—you cannot go back and change the past. Instead, Uppal asks: “What does it mean to have a mother? Is it the necessary condition of humanity?”

The pain is carefully crafted by pairing each chapter with a movie that illuminates the conflict between this mother and daughter. Ultimately, Projection is an unapologetic personal examination of art, belonging, memory and home.
Profile Image for Ephemera Pie.
295 reviews7 followers
July 30, 2014
I bought this at the Ontario Writers' Conference (2014), but I didn't realize until I read it several months later that Priscila Uppal actually spoke to me at the conference! Just hello, how are you liking the conference type of talk, but I happened to buy her book later in the day. I didn't realize until I saw the photo in the back. Awesome.

What breaks my heart is that this, as a memoir, is real. It really happened to someone. It's framed in a narrative of old movies, and I'm going to be watching most of the ones she mentioned because they sound so interesting I can't resist.

This book makes me lose faith in humanity, yet it brings me back how some people can step in a do what is right.

This book. Just...no way. It consumed it faster than the other books I have read in a very long time. I couldn't stop, because I wanted her quiet suffering to end. This book stirred my empathy.

Blood doesn't grant permission to abuse.

I am interested, however, in knowing if her mother is aware of this book, and what she thinks of it.
Profile Image for DeB.
1,045 reviews276 followers
February 15, 2016
Conflicted, intense and difficult to read, Projection follows Priscilla Uppal's pursuit of finding and engaging with the mother who abandoned her when she was two years old. The mother is detached, vicious, controlling, euphoric, demanding, jealous, critical, vulnerable, self-pitying and a confusing figure for Priscilla as she tries to bond with this erratic woman. I had to put this intense book to one side, and will return to it in a while. I skimmed to a section near the end:
Meeting a cousin, Diana, Priscilla asks "if it's true there's a crazy gene on the women's side of the family"and Diana..."sighs heavily and nods. I propose a toast: TO NOT GOING CRAZY.
Firmly, she shakes her head. NO. IT IS EASY TO BE THE CRAZY ONE. IT IS NOT EASY TO HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THE CRAZY ONES. SO, WE SHOULD DRINK TO GOING CRAZY. Which we do."
How does one reconcile the toxicity of a primary blood relationship with the essential need and hope at its heart? How?
Profile Image for Molly.
Author 48 books128 followers
December 7, 2016
A passionate, talented little girl’s Indian father becomes paralyzed for life and her Brazilian mother cracks under the strain, abandoning both that girl and her brother. Brought up by her bedridden father, the girl grows into her beauty and her talent, becoming a noted poet, professor (and athlete, too). Then she reencounters the mother who fled, this time in Brazil. Sound like a movie? Movies play a rescue role in Priscila Uppal’s inspired memoir. Quick-paced and spiced with zinger metaphors, Projection shows the complications of that reunion—and what this triumphant motherless daughter learns.
Profile Image for Diane.
106 reviews
February 18, 2014
I really enjoyed this memoir. Priscila uses movies as metaphors for her life with / without her mother who is very unlikeable. Probably the worst reunion story ever! But Priscila meets it as a writer, analyzes the situation, and comes to her own mending. No happily ever after, but well written and my heart goes out to the author.
Profile Image for Pam.
545 reviews
April 23, 2014
This is a true story. It gave the reader permission not to have to like one or the other of one's parents. I thought her account of meeting her mother after 20 years to be refreshingly frank. It is one of the books for this year's pre-writer's festival class. I hope to be able to get tickets to hear the author at the festival.
2 reviews
April 27, 2014
What a compelling read!! Beautifully written (poetic actually) with wonderful movie reviews and analyses that smoothly link to her story and enhance our understanding of her encounters with her Mother. I'm so glad that Priscila returned to Brazil in 2005 following her initial 12 day visit in 2003 and helped me close the emotional loop!!
Profile Image for Katy.
423 reviews2 followers
June 22, 2014
3.5 stars. I loved the sections with the eccentric uncle and the grandmother. A good portion of the writing was poignant without falling into the melodramatic, which is no small feat in such a personal, lucid memoir. I am now curious about Uppal's poetry and will have to get my hands on one of her books...
394 reviews6 followers
May 15, 2017
I attended author's presentation of this book several years ago at Vancouver Writers Festival.

Author's mother abandoned her disabled husband and 2 growing children and returned to Brazil, the country of her birth. After many years of no contact, the authors; chooses to visit her mother and get to know her and that family. The author is forgiving. I don't know if I would be..
5 reviews
Read
December 30, 2013
I enjoyed this book. I
Ike the form of weaving in film.. Also like the attempt to be an observer when it he subject was so close. Must have been difficult to live and write.. And the reader is brought into that. Engrossing.
Profile Image for Carole Yeaman.
131 reviews16 followers
August 11, 2015
Insightful to read. Insightfully written? Mother and daughter perfectly well-matched. Uncle Fernando (hideous creep) is right on, Priscila. My blood will be running colder for the rest of my life after reading this.
Profile Image for Alexandra.
106 reviews8 followers
March 26, 2014
Heartbreaking but well-written and thoughtful examination of famiiies, identity, grief, motherhood and culture.
Profile Image for Patricia L..
568 reviews
January 17, 2015
What an honest account of an encounter with a runaway mother.
Yes, you can live without a mother.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews

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