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The Mother Knot
In this dark gem of a book by the author of The Kiss , a complex mother-daughter relationship precipitates a journey through depression to greater understanding, acceptance, freedom, and love,.
Spare and unflinching, The Mother Knot is Kathryn Harrison’s courageous exploration of her painful feelings about her mother, and of her depression and recovery. Writer, wife, mother of three, Kathryn Harrison finds herself, at age forty-one, wrestling with a black, untamable force that seems to have the power to undermine her sanity and her safety, a darkness that is tied to her relationship with her own mother, dead for many years but no less a haunting presence. Shaken by a family emergency that reveals the fragility of her current happiness, Harrison falls prey to despair and anxiety she believed she’d overcome long before. A relapse of anorexia becomes the tangible reminder of a youth spent trying to achieve the perfection she had hoped would win her mother’s love, and forces her to confront, understand, and ultimately cast out—in startling physical form—the demons within herself. Powerful, insightful, unforgettable, by “a writer of extraordinary gifts” (Tobias Wolff), Kathryn Harrison’s The Mother Knot is a knockout.
Spare and unflinching, The Mother Knot is Kathryn Harrison’s courageous exploration of her painful feelings about her mother, and of her depression and recovery. Writer, wife, mother of three, Kathryn Harrison finds herself, at age forty-one, wrestling with a black, untamable force that seems to have the power to undermine her sanity and her safety, a darkness that is tied to her relationship with her own mother, dead for many years but no less a haunting presence. Shaken by a family emergency that reveals the fragility of her current happiness, Harrison falls prey to despair and anxiety she believed she’d overcome long before. A relapse of anorexia becomes the tangible reminder of a youth spent trying to achieve the perfection she had hoped would win her mother’s love, and forces her to confront, understand, and ultimately cast out—in startling physical form—the demons within herself. Powerful, insightful, unforgettable, by “a writer of extraordinary gifts” (Tobias Wolff), Kathryn Harrison’s The Mother Knot is a knockout.
96 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2004
22 people are currently reading
508 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Harrison
47 books295 followersKathryn Harrison is the author of the novels Envy, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water.
She has also written memoirs, The Kiss and The Mother Knot, a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago, a biography, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and a collection of personal essays, Seeking Rapture.
Ms. Harrison is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review; her essays, which have been included in many anthologies, have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, Salon, and other publications.
She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.
She has also written memoirs, The Kiss and The Mother Knot, a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago, a biography, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and a collection of personal essays, Seeking Rapture.
Ms. Harrison is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review; her essays, which have been included in many anthologies, have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, Salon, and other publications.
She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 25, 2015
As usual, at least after reading this and The Kiss, Harrison's story drew me in and repelled me at the same time. I agree that it is a dark gem. and yes, she writes beautifully but there's always a little suspicion: can this really be happening? The discovery and connections she makes are bewitching, and the ritual she decides on to release her own victimhood is a little magical - but somehow it works; it may be a little overly dramatic for some. I think for most women the mother knot - parts beautiful and ugly - is always there at some a deeper level, in some shape shifting form.
The final paragraph in her acknowledgement at the end of the book was very touching and provided me with a more confident resolution than the actual essay:
"Though my mother didn't prepare me for marriage or motherhood or the job of living, she did give me a muse. My love for her preceded and has outlasted my rage. Because her purpose was to elude she continues to fascinate. She provides what a writer requires, an eternally empty vessel into which endless characters and plots, and all the longing they represent, can be poured."
The final paragraph in her acknowledgement at the end of the book was very touching and provided me with a more confident resolution than the actual essay:
"Though my mother didn't prepare me for marriage or motherhood or the job of living, she did give me a muse. My love for her preceded and has outlasted my rage. Because her purpose was to elude she continues to fascinate. She provides what a writer requires, an eternally empty vessel into which endless characters and plots, and all the longing they represent, can be poured."
October 13, 2019
The Mother Knot, in my opinion, cannot be read unless the The Kiss, this author's first memoir, is read beforehand. Both focus on Kathryn Harrison's complex relationship with her parents, and the Mother Knot is simply a continuation of the story.
The author, no longer tormented by her father like she was when she was young, now must exorcise the memory of her dead mother in this memoir. You'd think, from reading The Kiss, that her father would have been the one who affected her the most, simply because of the incestuous nature of their relationship, but no.
Her mother is the one who continues to cause her emotional agony, affecting her relationships with her own children, now twenty years after her death. This memoir is a brilliant tale of healing, and It's quite cathartic when you get to the last page and finally see Kathryn let her mother, who she holds to be an almost godlike figure in her mind, go and stay in the past.
I believe Kathryn Harrison has one more memoir she wrote about her mother, who she describes as her enemy but also her muse, and I'll definitely be reading that book as well. At the risk of sounding pretentious here, I find her ability to turn her painful past into art so beautiful. She's really an incredible writer, and I'm intrigued enough by her that I'll probably go through her backlist at some point. If you enjoy reading memoirs, I highly recommend her work.
TW: Depression, anorexia. (Anorexia is really my only trigger when I read, but it wasn't that much of a focus in this book, so it didn't bother me that much. Still, I thought I'd mention it, because the language she used to describe her struggles with her eating disorder was familiar and painful to me. I knew exactly how she felt.)
The author, no longer tormented by her father like she was when she was young, now must exorcise the memory of her dead mother in this memoir. You'd think, from reading The Kiss, that her father would have been the one who affected her the most, simply because of the incestuous nature of their relationship, but no.
Her mother is the one who continues to cause her emotional agony, affecting her relationships with her own children, now twenty years after her death. This memoir is a brilliant tale of healing, and It's quite cathartic when you get to the last page and finally see Kathryn let her mother, who she holds to be an almost godlike figure in her mind, go and stay in the past.
I believe Kathryn Harrison has one more memoir she wrote about her mother, who she describes as her enemy but also her muse, and I'll definitely be reading that book as well. At the risk of sounding pretentious here, I find her ability to turn her painful past into art so beautiful. She's really an incredible writer, and I'm intrigued enough by her that I'll probably go through her backlist at some point. If you enjoy reading memoirs, I highly recommend her work.
TW: Depression, anorexia. (Anorexia is really my only trigger when I read, but it wasn't that much of a focus in this book, so it didn't bother me that much. Still, I thought I'd mention it, because the language she used to describe her struggles with her eating disorder was familiar and painful to me. I knew exactly how she felt.)
November 18, 2016
In a word: sparse.
Harrison writes about super personal, touching things: a whack mom, her son's illness, her own vacillating anorexia, digging up her mom and having her cremated, a lot of info about the necklace her mom was wearing when she was buried and how decomposition can affect things, like jewelry- you know a lot of info, but this book was so thin on details that would make me connect and I am not sure what to think.
I feel like I read the Cliff Notes of the real book and missed a lot. I mean a lot, a lot of material.
It also was metaphor heavy. Don't get me wrong- I love myself some good metaphor, but paragraphs of metaphor in a book that felt like a summary was way to much.
If your looking for a short read, The Mother Knot will not disappoint, but it may leave you feeling a little bereft of connection. At least it did me.
Harrison writes about super personal, touching things: a whack mom, her son's illness, her own vacillating anorexia, digging up her mom and having her cremated, a lot of info about the necklace her mom was wearing when she was buried and how decomposition can affect things, like jewelry- you know a lot of info, but this book was so thin on details that would make me connect and I am not sure what to think.
I feel like I read the Cliff Notes of the real book and missed a lot. I mean a lot, a lot of material.
It also was metaphor heavy. Don't get me wrong- I love myself some good metaphor, but paragraphs of metaphor in a book that felt like a summary was way to much.
If your looking for a short read, The Mother Knot will not disappoint, but it may leave you feeling a little bereft of connection. At least it did me.
May 18, 2016
Read this in less than 2 hrs. Meh. Should have been an essay not a book. i get the issues at hand, but honestly.........not enough here for a book.
July 1, 2008
The narrative of this memoir begins at about Labor Day, 2002 and it concludes in March 2003. It was published in 2004. So it was written quickly and rushed into print. Based on that, I’m suspicious of the resolution offered at the end. The woman telling the story had chronic depression and problematic relationships with her husband and kids. She makes a (to me) rather bizarre gesture intended to symbolize the changes she wants to accomplish in her life, and afterwards she seems to feel better. End of story.
My reaction was to note that life seems to follow a sine curve. She may have improved her situation by the end, but such a short period is covered that there’s no assurance that she won’t crest and start downhill again. I don’t think any of her problems were really put to rest. So the short timeframe feels like a contrivance to force events into the shape of a story. Granted, all writing is contrivance to some extent. Perhaps I’m being hard on her because I found the whole subject of what she did rather repulsive.
My reaction was to note that life seems to follow a sine curve. She may have improved her situation by the end, but such a short period is covered that there’s no assurance that she won’t crest and start downhill again. I don’t think any of her problems were really put to rest. So the short timeframe feels like a contrivance to force events into the shape of a story. Granted, all writing is contrivance to some extent. Perhaps I’m being hard on her because I found the whole subject of what she did rather repulsive.
May 15, 2016
While it may not be fair to compare two works by an author to determine one's merit, it's hard to not compare "The Mother Knot" to Harrison's "The Kiss." To me, "The Kiss" is a remarkable text, and "The Mother Knot" simply fell short. While "The Kiss" deeply explored the trajectory of Harrison's relationship with her father, "The Mother Knot" glosses over necessary details as to why she is so haunted by her mother's treatment of her. There is one line in the final 20 pages of the book, in particular, that feels unearned: "How sad it was--it didn't feel bearable--letting my mother go without having had her" (66). Without giving the reader a clear impression of the mother's absence, there's no sadness felt on our end when the mother is out of the picture because she's barely in it to begin with.
April 27, 2016
I've been wondering if this little bon bon of priviledged narcissism is the author's joke on a readership who appreciated, as I did, the brutal honesty of The Kiss. Because I can't rationalize this book's existence otherwise. A woman who can allow herself the luxury of a mental and self-imposed physical breakdown over a long-dead narcissistic mother (seriously) at the expense of a loving husband and three children is a spoiled woman indeed. So your Mommy didn't love you. Join the club. Now grow up. No wonder her therapist seemed to sneer...
January 16, 2020
Yikes. Dj copy calls this a "dark gem" but I call it a warm turd. In order to find peace the author has to . . . wait for it . . . dig up her mother's dead body (or have it dug up for her, rather, don't mistake this for something truly gory and thereby interesting--it's not). And have it cremated. And shipped to her. So she can expunge. Or what the fuck EVer you sick weird sicko.
November 24, 2010
Complicated and beautiful writing. Harrison confronts the vicious ghost of her mother and addresses it with great honesty and bravery. In the hands of a lesser writer this would be self-indulgent, but here it's raw and elegiac.
June 28, 2012
I can't say I enjoyed this book because it's not a fun read. However cathartic it was for Harrison, this short memoir is well written and worth reading, especially for anyone who has suffered from depression and/or has unresolved issues with a parent.
October 20, 2011
I'm not really sure why I continued to read this book - I guess I was hoping it would get better, but it never did. I found this book to be boring and pointless.
January 1, 2017
feel so bad for this lady. so much resonates with me about being given away by your mother.
Read
September 19, 2023As a memoir, I will not be rating this book. however, I will say that I loved the way in which Kathryn faces her own feelings fearlessly. Although she provides the figurative language and vivid imagery you would expect from a writer, she does not hide away her darkness. This relatively short and intense read touches the intergenerational impacts of a traumatic childhood, and the ways in which our parents and abusers can live on within us. I really love it and I'm excited to read more of her!
July 12, 2020
Kathryn Harrison is a master of the personal essay/memoir form. She limits her scope and writes in threes. Seems effortless though I’m confident her final product is anything but. If it’s true that the difference between a good painting and a great painting is five strokes - then Ms Harrison has mastered the five sentences necessary to set apart a great piece of nonfiction.
May 24, 2025
This felt more like a long essay than a book. Thus, I wasn’t as engaged as I was with Harrison’s masterpiece, “The Kiss.” I got glimmers of what her mom what like. It didn’t go as deep as it’d like. Maybe that was intentional. I loved the ending “pink frills of foam” such a vision. She is a painterly writer. It did remind me of my grief around losing a parent, and I am grateful to it for that.
August 23, 2019
Disturbing on several levels.
September 28, 2019
Harrison can do more with fewer words than anyone except Didion.
February 8, 2021
Harrison's mom was neglectful. Harrison grieves the conclusion of breastfeeding her youngest child. Harrison's son has asthma. Harrison spreads her mother's ashes in the ocean sans pants. The end.
April 2, 2023
Admirable, brave, gut-wrenching, and relatable.
January 7, 2025
Given to me from Aleks. Only a few lines had depth to me but none are worth remembering or recommending to others.
December 31, 2023
i’m not sure this book would make much sense to anyone who hasn’t read harrison’s other memoirs. they should be read as a chronological trilogy: the kiss, seeking rapture, the mother knot.
March 2, 2024
3.5 stars
I first encountered Kathryn Harrison via her controversial memoir The Kiss, then the essay collections True Crimes and Seeking Rapture. She writes with panache, her work often swaying into the melancholic, particularly when the topic involves her mother.
In The Kiss, and, to a lesser extent, the essay collections, Harrison is permitted the space to flesh out more details about this sad mother-daughter relationship. The mother is young and self-absorbed, materialistic, and, at times, downright cruel. She wants her freedom, but there’s one obstacle: her kid. She gives up young Kathryn to the elderly grandparents. But in her newfound freedom, the mother doesn’t go far. At first, she lives in the grandparents’ house, but then moves out to a nearby apartment; so near, but eons away emotionally. It becomes Kathryn’s futile mission to get her mother’s attention, to earn her love, but, alas, all she gets is disapproval and rejection. This rejection haunts Kathryn throughout her life and informs her books, including this one.
I really enjoyed the aforementioned essay collections. They resonated strongly with me. But The Mother Knot falls short. The breast milk scenes, as well as those taking place in her therapist’s office, fail to draw me into the type of narrative that Harrison is capable of constructing. They seem more like therapeutic journal entries tacked on, rather than part of a coherent memoir.
The book, I feel, is too short and would have been more powerful if additional scenes could have been included that detail her disheartening years with her mother and how devastated she would become. So much was glossed over. The Mother Knot is not even a hundred pages; much could have been accomplished with the addition of another fifty, or better yet, another hundred pages. Harrison can do it; go ahead and read the essay collections, you will see. She can summon tears from the most diehard narcissist when at her best.
The ending is where Harrison shines in this book. Such a poignant scene of release (no spoilers). It almost compensates for the beginning. Some have found this scene, this act, to be morbidly eccentric, but we all have our symbolistic rituals to keep the devil at bay.
I first encountered Kathryn Harrison via her controversial memoir The Kiss, then the essay collections True Crimes and Seeking Rapture. She writes with panache, her work often swaying into the melancholic, particularly when the topic involves her mother.
In The Kiss, and, to a lesser extent, the essay collections, Harrison is permitted the space to flesh out more details about this sad mother-daughter relationship. The mother is young and self-absorbed, materialistic, and, at times, downright cruel. She wants her freedom, but there’s one obstacle: her kid. She gives up young Kathryn to the elderly grandparents. But in her newfound freedom, the mother doesn’t go far. At first, she lives in the grandparents’ house, but then moves out to a nearby apartment; so near, but eons away emotionally. It becomes Kathryn’s futile mission to get her mother’s attention, to earn her love, but, alas, all she gets is disapproval and rejection. This rejection haunts Kathryn throughout her life and informs her books, including this one.
I really enjoyed the aforementioned essay collections. They resonated strongly with me. But The Mother Knot falls short. The breast milk scenes, as well as those taking place in her therapist’s office, fail to draw me into the type of narrative that Harrison is capable of constructing. They seem more like therapeutic journal entries tacked on, rather than part of a coherent memoir.
The book, I feel, is too short and would have been more powerful if additional scenes could have been included that detail her disheartening years with her mother and how devastated she would become. So much was glossed over. The Mother Knot is not even a hundred pages; much could have been accomplished with the addition of another fifty, or better yet, another hundred pages. Harrison can do it; go ahead and read the essay collections, you will see. She can summon tears from the most diehard narcissist when at her best.
The ending is where Harrison shines in this book. Such a poignant scene of release (no spoilers). It almost compensates for the beginning. Some have found this scene, this act, to be morbidly eccentric, but we all have our symbolistic rituals to keep the devil at bay.
April 1, 2015
I picked this book up at the library (they actually had it!) after reading how well written it was from another author's writing book. I have been curious about Kathryn Harrison's books for some time but never picked one up. It is a small book; a long essay; a well written essay. I read it with interest but it didn't leave me with any kind of feeling one way or another about her journey of finding a way to let go of her conflicted relationship with her mother. I felt for her and her struggles with raising a family and feeling containment in her marriage especially when she is being challenged with another bout of anorexia at the same time her son is not physically well. I always wonder why women who come from such unloving, uncaring childhoods with narcissistic parents even want to have families themselves. I give her kudos for giving her family as much of her energy and caring as she does. It is worth the read for the writing and the lovely way Harrison weaves the disparate elements of this story that ultimately comes to a strange, cathartic resolution.
September 27, 2016
It felt appropriate to read this directly after Annie John since they are both beautifully spare books about difficult mother and daughter relationships, although they are very different stories beyond that. Twenty years after the death of her mother, Kathryn Harrison weaned her third child, setting off a depression with unclear origins. She begins to unearth feelings and experiences from her past — eventually in a very literal manner. Her mother had essentially abandoned her to her grandparents when she was a child, going so far to phrase it as providing Harrison as a stand-in hostage for her parents to control, although this hadn’t turned out quite as her mother planned. Inevitably Harrison’s experience of being a mother pulled her back to her experiences of being mothered, the two entangled together. Read more on my booklog
July 8, 2010
In this biography about the author and her relationship with her mother I found myself not loving it. Its pretty weirdly bleak...the author doesn't seem to be able to center her life and its because of her mother's cold attitude and abandonment growing she feels this way. She ocnstantly second guesses herself as a mother because of how horrible her mother was...I found myself wanted to shake her and say snap out of it. I feel bad about someone whose mother wasn't great but destroying yourself especially when you have a famiy, are a smart capable person and have a great support network might be irritating to others who are afflicted and don't have the same support network.
July 17, 2011
She manages to paint a compassionate portrait of a very conflicted mother, and that could not have been easy. However, this book did not particularly resonate with me, and again, like Kelly Corrigan's Lift, I wonder how these established authors are getting away with marketing short essays as book-length memoir. A worthy read for anyone who has anorexia or someone with anorexia in their lives. She painted a realistic picture of how dangerous and all-consuming this disease is.
July 6, 2016
I am drawn to Kathryn Harrison, and can't wait to keep reading more of her work. I crave women authors who write about ugly things, who aren't afraid of being unlikable. I like that her exploration of her mental illness and self-destructive behaviors doesn't have a "look at what I overcame" narrative, as if those issues are past and gone. She talks about her history with mental illness -- past, present and future -- in a way that deeply resonates with me. This one was a REALLY quick read!
April 28, 2010
Kathryn Harrison is a really good writer. This book was about her Issues with her so-called mother. I could not identify with her, but I could really feel for what she was going through. On a separate note, she referenced Millais painting of Ophelia which I had just read about in Half Moon Street and
Want to read
January 23, 2009recommended by Mary Louise
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews