Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice

by Jocelyn Jane Cox

★★★★★ “I spent almost the entirety of Motion Dazzle with my heart in my throat for one reason or another.” Tyler Feder, author of Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir and Bodies Are Cool

Former competitive figure skater and coach Jocelyn Jane Cox is desperate to care for her toddler and her ailing mother, all while preparing to host a fabulous zebra-themed first birthday party at her house. As a new parent whose supportive mom is slipping away with dementia, she finds herself spinning in the middle of the so-called “sandwich generation”.

Cox draws on the strengths she learned while competing with her older brother as her partner. On the ice, she battled injuries and uncertainties while trying to dazzle audiences, discovering along the way that we can love and hate an activity in equal measure, and that “faking it ‘til you make it” can be a viable way forward. As an adult, Jocelyn leans into performance and distraction as coping strategies while demonstrating a capability we all have: to find moments of celebration alongside pain.

Splicing her own early motherhood with memories of her single mother’s TLC, Cox’s choreography takes readers around the rink of a high stakes sport and into the stands…where her mother, a bit of a mystery, sits quietly amid the ovation. Motion Dazzle shines a spotlight on the life cycle and how we
pass love from one generation to the next.

Genres: Memoir, Figure Skating

270 pages, Paperback

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Jocelyn Jane Cox holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in English Literature with a focus on Creative Writing. She competed in the United States Figure Skating Championships with her older brother, Brad, four times (twice in pair skating and twice in ice dance). She has been coaching kids, teenagers, and adults in both skating and writing for over 25 years. Her creative nonfiction was included in the anthology Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, edited by Diane Gottlieb (ELJ Editions, 2023). Among other publications, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Newsweek, Good Men Project, WIRED, Belladonna Comedy, The Offing, HAD, Cleaver, Litro Magazine, Literal Latte, and Colorado Review. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think one indication of knowing you have read a good book is when you feel the tears well up in your eyes. This book, despite its short length, did so not once, but on several occasions. I was very excited to read this book because Jocelyn was my skating coach for several years and I still continue to take lessons from her brother Brad when I am home from school. I loved reading about their skating career, of which I had heard parts of over the years. I also saw a side to each of them that I had never known before. Even though the book was a lot about motherhood and loss--two things I fortunately have not had to deal with yet--I found some of the messages and insights that Jocelyn provided to be profound and applicable to my own life as a college student. Definitely a well-written book and I cannot wait to see what else Jocelyn has in store!!

[Anna Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle is magical. Jocelyn Jane Cox invites us to her much-longed-for son's first birthday party (zebra-themed), and on this day of celebration, she is also mourning the life of her mother. This book explores the complexities of care, how so often in life, conflicting emotions (love and loss) have to be held in the exact same moment. The birthday party is the stage on which this narrative is set, but she also expertly guides us through her history with her mother and with performance (professional figure skating). I found myself crying and laughing, often on the same page, and I think this is one of Cox's greatest gifts as a writer -- her ability to explore complexity even on the sentence level. The memoir is steady and impossible to put down. I'm recommending this to everyone I know.

[Julie Vick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciated the unique structure of this memoir as well as the humor mixed with Jocelyn's insights into her relationship with her mother. I also liked getting a peek into the world of competitive ice skating (and picking up some bonus zebra facts).

[Christie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m usually not a memoir person, but wow.

Having known the author and her brother Brad since I was a kid (he was my ice dance coach), I was fascinated to read about their skating careers. Her reflections on figure skating mirrored so much of my own journey—years devoted to the sport, and later discovering my true love was writing. Those insights drew me in.

But that’s not what kept me reading.

Jocelyn Cox has a gift for making everyday moments magical. She weaves the narrative around planning a zebra-themed birthday party for her son—a thread I wasn’t sure about at first, but it turned out to be brilliant. And while I typically avoid memoirs about grief, this book felt hopeful, intimate, and deeply human. It’s not a story about loss; it’s a celebration of love and what truly matters.

I highly recommend Motion Dazzle—for yourself, for friends, for anyone who wants to be reminded of what it means to be human.

[Jamie Beth Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, honest memoir with a ton of sly, sweet humor! And she stuck the landing!

[Book Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle is a memoir about a daughter trying to keep her life steady while everything around her seems to slide in unpredictable directions. The book shifts between her years as a competitive figure skater and the present day as she juggles early motherhood, a marriage, and the slow, heartbreaking decline of her own mother. The chapters move in short, vivid pieces that echo the idea of dazzle camouflage and the incomplete way memory works. What unfolds is a layered story of love, loss, identity, and grit. The author’s voice is warm and sharp at the same time, and the result feels honest in a way that hits straight in the chest.

I was pulled into her world. The skating scenes are full of pressure and sparkle and fear, and Jocelyn Jane Cox writes them with such clarity that I felt like I was watching from the rink boards. The early chapters show her constant push to perform, to smile when she is hurting, to carry herself with poise even when she feels anything but composed. Later, watching her try to shape a first birthday party while her mother is in the hospital had me tensing up in real time. The tiny details of the zebra books, the blue painter’s tape, the quiches cooling on the counter caught me off guard because they were so tender and so fraught at once. I could feel her heart splitting open as she tried to make something lovely for her son while her grief pressed in from the edges.

The portraits of her mother are what stayed with me the most. The way she describes their twenty-year daily phone call, the quiet jokes, the listening, the stories from childhood that finally spill out in fragments. Grief shows up in the book like a tide that rises slowly, then all at once, and I found myself rooting for her to catch her breath. The writing feels bright, then raw, then bright again, and I loved that. It felt real. Not polished grief, but grief that stumbles and snaps and softens. I could feel her longing for more time and her guilt and her fierce love drowning each other out in waves. It made me think about my own family more than I expected.

Motion Dazzle would be a powerful read for anyone who has cared for an aging parent or anyone who has tried to grow a new life at the same time another one is fading. It would also resonate with former athletes or anyone who knows what it means to chase perfection even when it costs more than it gives.

[Jennifer Silva Redmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice by Jocelyn Jane Cox is the story of a young girl raised by her dynamic and ambitious mom (who was pretty much a single mom even before she was divorced and truly a single mom after that). Cox had an older brother who was even more ambitious, and between him and her (the mom) Cox became a figure skater, performing with her older brother for years. Like my own mom, Cox’s mom is not exactly a stage mother cliche, but they both did hunger for the spotlight in what became a vicarious way. My mom might have been more sensitive to what I actually wanted, but both of these women wanted the best for their daughters—and for them to be the best in their field. That is a lot to live up to, no matter how lovingly the pressure is applied. But her mother was also her closest friend, which is definitely what my mom was to me over many many years.

What I’m saying is that I could have written this paragraph from Motion-Dazzle about me and my mom: "Imagine a phone call almost two decades long. The call started when I went away to college in Philadelphia, about forty-five minutes away from where she was in Wilmington, Delaware. It continued through my subsequent moves to Denver, Boston, the New York City suburbs, Manhattan, then back to a different NY suburb. Twenty years of chatting from different states, occasionally interrupted by our respective jobs, by sleep (albeit imperfect on both our parts), and by patches of poor mobile service."

It took me years to find another outlet that made me happy creatively as well as mentally and emotionally, and Cox did the same thing with teaching and training ice skaters, after her long and painful break up with the sport. Luckily both my mom and hers adapted and wholeheartedly supported their daughters in their new careers. And then we both “got to” support our moms, as their caretakers, at the end of their lives. Cox had a child during those final years, which I did not, but I related to the whole turning your life upside-down and taking care of your mom. Maybe you can, too.

[BK Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The story I’m about to tell is about being loved and getting hurt, even despite that love,” Jocelyn Jane Cox tells her readers early on. “It’s about screwing up, strength and weakness, success and failure, and many errors and triumphs in between.” Motion Dazzle is all that, but much more. The memoir, essentially, is a love letter—to a son, a husband, and, especially, a mother. In a brilliant alternating dual timeline structure that culminates in a birthday and a death, Cox balances celebration and suffering as she tenderly traces a mother-daughter relationship over a lifetime, with all its complexities, misunderstandings, and mysteries. It’s about waiting for and watching one love of her life, her son, come into the world at the same time that another of the loves of her life, her mother, fades as dementia steals her essence. The author struggles to juggle the needs of each and keep them both safe in that fraught and seemingly unnavigable stage of life at which the parent becomes helpless as a child and the child becomes the parent. Motion Dazzle is lovingly written with warmth and humor. Cox manages to make you laugh in one moment and take you to the edge of tears or beyond the next. Her memoir will ring true not only to those in the sandwich generation torn between the meeting the needs of their parents and those of their children, but also to anyone charged with caring for an aging parent and feeling their best isn’t enough, that their love and devotion can’t possibly equal that which was given to them.

[Janina Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this engaging, touching, heart-breaking and joyful memoir. It’s a story about figure skating; finding love with a partner after you gave up hope, and finding love with your mother—enough to stand by them through the hard times of caregiving that sometimes come with aging.

Having been a caregiver myself for my parents, Ms. Cox’s words touched me deeply. Her lyrical writing and spot on observations echoed my own experience, but always eloquently. Her observations make clear that caregiving is what happens while you’re living a full life, a crazy Motion Dazzle of existence. Sometimes we create the Motion Dazzle to protect ourselves from the pain of it all, and sometimes the Motion Dazzle just happens.

I love her words here.

“I wonder a lot about the moment we become adults. Is it when our parent dies? Is it when we become parents? Is it when we move out? Turn eighteen?..When we experience that shift, the time to give back to them tenfold or maybe trillionfold when they can no longer give?… There’s another less obvious landmark I have to add: when we can celebrate and suffer at the same time. When we can feel joy and pain simultaneously. When we can feel joy and pain simultaneously. And with an intensity we’d never fathomed…There’s something else too. The keeping of one’s word. She asked if I would forget her and I told her no.”

Jocelyn’s words are simplyh truth and full of heart.

[Sarah Leibov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle is one of those books that quietly sneaks up on you and then stays with you long after you’ve finished the last page. This memoir is a love story in many forms. There’s the tender bond between Cox and her son, who turns one on the same day her mother dies, a heartbreaking overlap of beginnings and endings. There’s the powerful love between Cox and her own mother, a creative, selfless woman who sacrificed her time and money to shuttle Jocelyn and her brother to the ice rink, helping to shape them into skating stars.

Cox also writes beautifully about romantic love, and how she meets her husband and builds a life with him—but the emotional center of the book is unmistakably maternal. It reads like a love letter from a mother to her son about a grandmother he will never remember.

One of the most striking parts of the memoir is Cox’s honest account of caring for her mother while pregnant, at a time when she herself desperately needed to be cared for. She captures the emotional cost of tending to someone with dementia with clarity and grace.

Like her mother, Cox has an enthusiasm for detail and a genuine celebration of small moments, and that is reflected in her writing. Her humor is woven into scenes that allow Motion Dazzle to be heartbreaking without being bleak. It’s a book about love that keeps moving even when loss threatens to stop everything in its tracks.

[Casey Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her debut memoir, Jocelyn Jane Cox juxtaposes two events that occur on a single day, her mother’s death and her son’s first birthday party, leaving her torn between hosting the perfect birthday party for the child she’d dreamed of and rushing to her mother’s side, states away. She weaves in flashbacks that include her childhood and teens as a figure skater paired with her older brother, her parents’ history, her years of wishing for a life partner, and the wonderful moment when she met her future husband. The deep, loving relationship she has with her mother—whom she clearly admires and counts on for advice and friendship throughout her life—is a constant, which makes her mother’s decline and Cox’s dilemma all the more moving for readers.
Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice, is a testament to the enduring bonds between a mother and her daughter, even as she falls in love with her future husband, then her infant son. Cox skillfully bears witness to the struggle to be all things to all people that characterizes the lives of so many women as they reach the middle phase of life. Her clear, often lyrical prose welcomes us into her world and, in so doing, leaves us with a story we won’t soon forget.

[Angie F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle by Jocelyn Jane Cox is a beautiful memoir that weaves together the author's time as a competitive figure skater, her life as a writer and skating coach, and the push and pull of family in her life. It is scheduled to be published on September 30, 2025.

This memoir does what all memoirs try, but few pull off as deftly: it gives us the facts as they are remembered, but also provides the context and honest reflections on the events. Using the motif of a zebra throughout and the definition of the title, the author manages to guide the reader back and forth in time as the story unfolds, and despite not using names for various people during much of the text, managed to not confuse the reader.

This memoir is very well written. As a big figure skating fan, I was hoping that I would like this, but it exceeded all my expectations. I really appreciated the way the complicated family dynamics were written and the way that sensitive topics such as injuries, the care of elderly parents, were handled.

I recommend Motion Dazzle to everyone. Whether you are a figure skating fan, a writer, or dealing with difficult family situations, this book will resonate in some way with everyone. It's safe to say that I was dazzled by the (e)motion of this beautiful memoir.

Thank you very much to the author and publisher Vine Leaves Press for providing an ARC of this book via BookSirens for a possible review. All opinions are my own.

[Sara Weiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jocelyn Cox’s memoir so beautifully depicts a mother-daughter relationship through time, told with humor, depth and compassion as she weaves together the story of her past and present. The story completely drew me in as I found myself invested in her journey from her early life as a competitive ice skater, through her struggle to find a romantic partner, and the beginning stages of becoming a mother. The stability of her mom’s presence is a constant throughout her life, and so we feel the profound loss that she experiences when she begins to lose her to dementia. The narrative continually returns to memories of her son’s first birthday— a crises point as her mother’s health is in decline at the same time. This books is a captivating read, full of depth and poignancy, humor and heartbreak. I can’t recommend it enough!

[Karen Corvino · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this book down. From the first line I was invested in the author's journey, as we wove back and forth across time in a single day and also a lifetime. Cox brought that age-old parenting adage "the years are short, but the days are long" to life in her memoir.

Cox's voice is fresh and honest on the complexities of the sandwich generation - stuck between tending for our parents while learning to parent our own children. Regret is inevitable when our heartstrings, time and energy are pulled in so many directions on borrowed time.

Throughout her story I reflected on the frailty of memory and the importance of intergenerational storytelling. But those universal themes were balanced with the little details that make each family unique -the power of bright lipstick, the joy in a gorgeous tablescape, and the magic of a little bit of whimsy.

[Jorli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has lived inside me since I read it. The relationship between Jocelyn and her mother is so beautiful, so tangible, and so well-captured, it opened a new dimension of understanding around what it is to love — amid previously unfathomable circumstances — and how sometimes the littlest things, like decorations and wrappings and table settings, give our life color and meaning. (An entirely new concept to me, which I have since embraced, fully.) There's heartbreak to be sure, tempered with so much fucking joy and humor. May we all be remembered with this amount of reverence and authenticity. May we continue to get back up after we fall, again and again and again. May we love each other and this gorgeous, frivolous world as fully as this family has.

[Gabra Zackman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a stunning read. This book made me journey to a past that reminded me of my own, and filled me with such love and joy. It simultaneously felt like listening to a frenzied heartbeat as well as a lullaby. Jocelyn Jane Cox has seamlessly interwoven the threads of an early figure skating career, a beautiful relationship with her mother, and the crisis point of the heartbreak of her mother's degeneration mixed with the joy of the birth of her son. I wanted to live inside the words of this book, and let them hold me long into the night. A beautiful and necessary book for the heart and soul, particularly for anyone caring for a parent or elder. Gorgeously written, with comfort and soul wrestling spinning together at each turn on the ice.

[Jacque Gorelick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jocelyn Jane Cox's story is a journey to the liminal space between grief and joy—as she loses her mother to dementia while becoming a mother herself. Told with heart and humor, Motion Dazzle is a poignant homage to the unwavering bond she shared with her mother. Cox's voice is so genuine, reading her story was like having an intimate conversation with a friend on a New York City park bench. The story pulled me right in and didn't let go until the last poignant and hopeful page. Motion Dazzle is a must read for anyone who has had to divide their heart and attention among the people they love most without coming undone.

[Blair Glaser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle is a story to curl up with and drink in. It's more than a book about being in the sandwich generation, although it captures that experience to a T. It's about the deep bond between a mother and daughter who are lucky enough to become best friends, until the relationship is betrayed by illness. It's about getting everything you want — but later than you would have liked — so you treasure it even more while being utterly shocked at how disruptive it is. It is about how impermanence is the only thing we can really depend on. I loved the humor and heart in Motion Dazzle, and I didn't want it to end.

[Patti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautifully written and honest memoir, a love letter to a son and a portrait of a mother-daughter relationship. I thought the ebb and flow structure that interspersed her son's first birthday with her mother's decline was particularly poignant. This book is a case study in how we can hold space for multiple emotions, in the most literal sense. This book also turned a spotlight to the challenges of the sandwich generation of caregiving, and also taught me a lot about competitive figure skating. All in all, a very moving and captivating read.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[wendy swift · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cox weaves together her childhood experience of being a competitive figure skater and her relationship with her mother along with her experience becoming a first time mom a little later in her life. She does this within the backdrop of planning her child’s first birthday party - a zebra themed party - hence the motion dazzle. The memoir is fast-paced as it discusses complex family relationships and the challenges these relationships present. Cox uses humor to offset some emotionally difficult moments, yet doesn’t avoid an open and honest look at sometimes difficult changes that accompany aging and the nature of a parent/child adult relationship. An important and meaningful read.

[Michele Dawson Haber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely enthralling and unputdownable! I love a book that teaches me something about a profession from a personal point of view. Jocelyn’s description of her life as a professional figure skater was fascinating on its own, but her ability to translate what that world taught her about moving through life as a daughter, mother, and caregiver resonated with this non-athlete! Jocelyn has an amazing sense of humor and an incredible ability to drill right down to the emotional core of a scene – it was this dazzling combination that kept me turning page after page.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was astounded at how clear the author was able to write about her mother. Grief is so complicated, as depicted in this memoir and as the author says, "a remembrance, but with pain." But I had such a vivid image of Barbara, brought alive by the author's words. Her personality, her person shined so clearly that I understand who she was at the end of the day, not just a character in a book, but a person.

This memoir explores the complexities of love: both as a parent, and as a child. And loss.

[E.R. Catalano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motion Dazzle is more than simply a beautiful memoir about motherhood from the perspective of the "sandwich" generation, though that certainly resonated with me. It's also about our varying definitions of love and family connection over time, what our parents want for us, and what we, in turn, want for our own children. We keep moving forward, striving for perfection, while knowing it's unattainable but worth the effort. We are like zebras in our motion dazzle; we dazzle the eyes for survival but also to amaze. Cox's story was moving in all the best ways.

[Mary Ardery · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most intimate and honest portraits I've read of the sandwich generation. This book is for readers who enjoy memoirs about family and how we carry our family of origin with us into our new iterations of family. Epistolary is one of my favorite modes of writing, and parts of the book are written as a letter to the author's son. The book's ending, which I won't quote too much from so I don't spoil anything, has a lovely lyrical anaphora about "This body of mine..." "This body of mine had been birthed and given birth" etc. Read this book and be deeply moved.

[Estelle Erasmus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The strength of Motion Dazzle lies in its powerful structure and poetic prose. Jocelyn Cox renders the present-day timeline of planning a child’s birthday party, which opens each chapter, with such vivid specificity that it carries real narrative momentum. The flashbacks to life with her mother, her years as a competitive figure skater, finding love later in life, and the transformative experience of becoming a mother add depth and tension without ever overwhelming the story. This compelling, smartly built memoir will resonate with readers and writers alike.

[Melissa Fraterrigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I try to turn off the lights around 10/10:30 p.m., but MOTION DAZZLE interrupted this goal and more! I was riveted by Jocelyn Jane Cox's memoir of grief and love, and how she chose to weave this tale around the day of her son's first birthday. Time moves between her son's birthday and her life with her mother who is now ailing in a hospital bed. The book is written with such love and care. I could have read many more chapters. Do yourself a favor and add this to your Must Read!!

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

From its suspenseful first words to its profound ending, Motion Dazzle lives up to its title, and then some. In telling us her story — one of showing up and hiding, of mothering and being mothered, of firsts and lasts — author Jocelyn Jane Cox never shies away from nuance or complexity. She infuses the book with lighthearted humor and raw truth, making for a story that’s simultaneously dark and beaming with light.

[Rebecca Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Jocelyn Cox's memoir. It was a heartbreaking and funny look into the relationship between mother and daughter, a story I could relate to so much in parts, and made me tear up and also laugh out loud. The tender stories of motherhood both of having a relationship and taking care of your mother and being a mother herself were beautiful and heartfelt. Being in the middle place of life is something so many of us experience and Cox wrote about it with such tenderness and love.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

These braided essays Camel Spin seamlessly between memories of a much-loved mother, the trials and joys of early parenting, and the demanding, exhilarating experience of a childhood spent on the ice. Deftly written and intimate, chock-full of beautifully rendered details, this story synthesizes life’s major and minor movements into a satisfying and genuine whole. Jocelyn Jane Cox delivers a triple Axel of a memoir in Motion Dazzle.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m working on a longer review but had to share what a moving, beautifully written memoir this is. Funny at times and heartbreaking in others, it felt like a conversation with a close girlfriend who has been through some things and has learned some essential truths about life in the sandwich generation. Highly recommend.