Mot: A Memoir

by Sarah Einstein, John Philip Santos (Selections)

At forty, Sarah Einstein is forced to face her own shortcomings. In the wake of an attempted sexual assault, she must come to terms with the facts that she is not tough enough for her job managing a local drop-in center for adults with mental illness and that her new marriage is already faltering. Just as she reaches her breaking point, she meets Mot, a homeless veteran who lives a life dictated by frightening delusion. She is drawn to the brilliant ways he has found to lead his own difficult life; traveling to Romania to get his teeth fixed because the United States doesn’t offer dental care to the indigent, teaching himself to use computers in public libraries, and even taking university classes while living out of doors.

A Memoir is the story of their unlikely friendship and explores what we can, and cannot, do for a person we love. In unsparing prose and with a sharp eye for detail, Einstein brings the reader into the world of Mot’s delusions and illuminates a life that would otherwise be hidden from us.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Mental Illness, Autobiography

168 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2015

Reviews

[Sidney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is a brilliant insight into the life of a homeless mentally ill man. Sarah Einstein took a trip that most people would not consider, but the resulting tale will keep you fascinated. Incidentally, I am her mother, so while I am proud of the book, the adventure behind it turned my hair grey. But please read the book; it will make my child happy. After you read it, please give it many stars. Five would be great. Thank you!

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fact not fiction
For the first time in years...
—"A Lack of Color," by Death Cab for Cutie

I last read one of Sarah Einstein's books in 2014—and while I found Remnants of Passion worth the effort at the time, I came away from Mot: A Memoir convinced that this one is an even better book. As it should be; Einstein has only grown as a writer in the time between the two. Far from being "unable to put it down" (as is too often said), I had to set Mot down, from time to time, to walk away from its intensity for awhile, before coming back to read more.

Mot may be "creative nonfiction" (whatever the hell that is), but it feels utterly real.

"This is the first time in forty years I've needed to buy lightbulbs."
—Mot, p.107

"Out of sight; out of mind" (OOSOOM—I've used the phrase so often that I abbreviate it now, at least to myself) is how we want people like Mot to be, after all—but Mot does not seem to want to stay out of sight. Mot is homeless, and classically schizophrenic as well, continually contending with the host of powerful, angry voices in his mind:

Asking about the goings-on in Mot's peculiar universe is always risky—speaking about the Big Guys Upstairs can sometimes summon them.
—p.8

It's not easy to be Mot's friend, but Einstein tries, even travelling across the country to urge Mot back toward the shelter in Morgantown, West Virginia, where they met.

Mot is a heartbreaking story, in many ways—not only because of Mot's own situation but because of Sarah's: what she's able to do for Mot, and how much she just can't do. I found it hard to criticize any of Einstein's choices. She is less forgiving of herself than anyone else is ever likely to be.

And, as she herself says,

There is meaning in attempting difficult things, whether or not you succeed.
—p.150

*

I can't even pretend to be objective about Sarah Einstein. She was—still is, I hope—a friend, though we haven't seen each other in person since the 1990s. She brought me to Goodreads in 2008, for which I will be forever grateful, and I still remember in particular one smoky evening long ago in Huntington, West Virginia, that could have turned out much worse than it did. (Mot spends a little time in Huntington itself, by the way, just passing through.)

But I do think that Mot is, objectively, an amazing book. Only later on, in fact, after I'd finished reading Mot and started on something else, did I begin to appreciate just how good Einstein's prose really is—both lean and clear, no words wasted, no seams showing. That's a rare gift, for an author, to be able to step back and let the story shine the way she does, resisting redundant verbal pyrotechnics... and it's a gift to be cherished.

As is Mot.

[Marie Manilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Einstein’s memoir, Mot, is the story of an unconventional friendship. Sadly, most people would run away from Mot, a homeless vet with a cast of harpies and frightening bigots living in his head. Einstein is not most people, and her memoir reveals just how far out on a limb she’ll go to bring comfort and order to Mot’s life, even as—perhaps especially as—her own marriage is falling apart. I found myself rooting for Mot who valiantly resists those alarming voices in his head. He also offers Einstein small kindnesses and wise counsel, something she desperately needs. It’s a dual story woven together skillfully and beautifully. CAUTION: This book might propel you into the streets with blankets and coats to offer to your town’s homeless. I hope it does.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cancel your appointments, call in sick to work, and read this book!

[Brendan O'Meara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine a memoir where the author makes another character the main focus. That's what Sarah Einstein does and that's why this memoir succeeds where others fail.

[Mike Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! It expanded on the award-winning essay and the additional information made the story that much more compelling.

[Sheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very thought provoking memoir. I would like to thank NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this book for my honest review.

Sarah is a 40 yr. old woman, who is trying to make the world a better place. She is the director of a drop in homeless shelter that was geared for the mentally ill and homeless everything was going just fine until the street drugs started getting smuggled in and the clientele were a lot more violent and the drug dealers were hanging around the place to causing all kinds of havoc. The staff had the area's non-emergency police number on speed dial it was getting so bad. They were losing a lot of their staff members because of the situation, which left them very short staffed and Sarah was there alone at night a lot of the time. She had been assaulted a few times and the last time was sexual in nature. Her life was getting threatened on a daily basis and she was just a wreck she hated even getting up in the morning. It was too much for her bare and she decided enough was enough. So she was going to use up her vacation time to find something else then resign.

Her new husband was not supportive of her at all. He was really quite selfish towards Sarah. He seemed to feel quite superior over her which he really wasn't. He had no empathy towards the situation she was dealing with a work. He had the gall to let her know that she just wasn't strong enough to handle the job and the responsibilities of being the director.

He was gone most of the time taking care of a very disturbed female that demanded most of his time. That alone was ripping their marriage apart, whenever the phone rang Sarah cringed because if she answered she was going to get cussed out or the female was going into a psychotic rant. He also was no help around the house and on top of the hard job she had during the day and night. When she got home she had to listen to him complain about her failures regarding keeping the house.

One day she received an email from her old friend, Mot aka Thomas, that she had met while working at the shelter. He was a veteran who was homeless and was suffering from some mental health issues, they were really were really quite interesting at that. Mot had been homeless for quite some time and he didn't want to live inside and have a normal life. He loved his life as a drifter you might say. He was quite accomplished at getting things done for himself as long as he was near a Walmart and a Library he was good to go.

He had asked her to meet him in Texas to catch up, and she was in such a state she thought why not. So she drove from West Virginia to Texas where she was to meet Mot in a Walmart parking lot. She had rented a cabin for a week for them to stay in, since at this time Mot was living in a beat up old wreck.

They share a very interesting and complex relationship, I would say she understands his mental illness but I'm not sure that's it at all. They have a mutual respect for one another and are just good friends. She has her times of frustrations with him as he does with her but they always come back around.

Sarah thinks that he would be much better if he came back home to West Virginia but he really doesn't want to go back at all, but does due to circumstances beyond his control.

The book is really good and you can see that there are some very good people out there who really care and want to help the disenfranchised almost to point of sacrificing their own families and happiness. I really admire Sarah for all she went through to help others in need and the sacrifices that she made in doing so. She is a true hero, we need many more like her. This book gives you an insight into what really happens to our mentally ill. It's so sad to think of our veterans living this way, where they aren't respected by the medical professionals even at some of the VA Hospitals. The patients have long waits to see the right medical professionals who will hopefully listen to them enough to give them the right diagnosis and medications to help them become the person they are meant to be. All mentally ill people who are living in homeless shelters need to get the right medical attention. They are not criminals, they just need help that we could provide them. True, I understand that some do not want to take their medications. But if they can control methadone they could do something like that for the mentally ill who are on the street who need their medications and are willing to take them. They want to live a productive life but they have no access to the medications to help them do that.

Like I said this is a well written book that is very thought provoking. After you finish reading this wonderful memoir you just keep thinking of these people and how can you help them.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about many things: homelessness, mental illness, compassion, relationships, even a bit of a travel narrative. But the core is the story of an unlikely friendship as beautiful as it is heart breaking. I don't read a lot of memoirs or creative non-fiction. Much of that sort of thing is a bit pretentious for my tastes. Besides, I have a huge stack of science fiction and philosophy to read. Nonetheless, Einstein's work is stylish without being pretentious, readable without being generic. I recommend it.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah is forty, and she’s floundering. Her life’s work, like her mother’s, has been to try to make the world a better place, and so she works at a homeless shelter as its director. But things are falling apart there; whereas once upon a time most of the mentally ill homeless were passive, now meth and other addictions have created so much anger and violence that she isn’t even safe there. She’s been physically attacked three times, one of which was sexual, and her life has been threatened on an ongoing basis. Too often she is the only staff member present, and it’s getting scary out there.

Many thanks go to Net Galley and University of Georgia Press for the free DRC. This title becomes available for sale September 15.

In addition, her marriage, which was predicated upon a mutual dedication to social justice issues and the understanding that neither she nor her new husband would be around much because of the time and attention their work demanded, is coming undone as well. Her husband Scotti has at times sided with the population she is supposed to be managing at the shelter against her.

Think of it!

So maybe it isn’t so very strange that she has decided to load herself into her vehicle and drive 1400 miles to Texas to visit a homeless friend who has moved there. “Mot”, who used to be “Thomas”, is living in a beat-up car in a Walmart parking lot. And whereas most of us would regard her mission as either an immense personal sacrifice or even a little bit bizarre, the fact is that she needed to get away from West Virginia, that shelter (where she has given notice and is using up every possible minute of vacation time), and Scotti. She has rented a little cabin—the closest thing Mot will accept even temporarily in terms of living indoors—with two beds, one for herself, and one for him. And as the book opens, she is reflecting that even if he never shows up, a whole week in this primitive little yurt, all by herself, sounds positively wonderful.

Right away her spouse is ringing her cell to complain of how much inconvenience he is experiencing while she is gone. He sends unhappy e-mails constantly, but he also doesn’t want her to use her smart phone because that data costs money. So although she hasn’t explained to us yet about the state of her marriage, which should still be in its honeymoon phase but really, really isn’t, we start to get the picture.

Mot is a complicated fellow. Immediately, when she quotes him, I start asking myself whether this is schizophrenia, a dissociative disorder, both or neither? I’m not a professional by a long shot, but when a guy routinely refers to the other folks with whom he is sharing a body and that control his behavior, it’s pretty clear all is not well. And my jaw dropped on the floor later in the book when he commented, in a moment of total lucidity, that it was probably the latter.

Mot is a veteran, and Sarah’s documentation of the unconscionable way the USA treats its veterans is noteworthy. Advocates for veterans’ health care should be plugging this book all the time, everywhere.

Sarah’s time with Mot mixes with some odd bits of philosophy, most of them his, and so although plot wise there aren’t a lot of parallels, the overall flavor to this book is similar to that of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (I have never compared any other book to that book before, and don’t expect to!)

I should also add that I came to this galley after having read a couple of Pulitzer winners and some books by my favorite bestselling authors. I dove into Mot not because I thought it would be my favorite of the remaining DRC’s I had to review, but because I had snagged it right before it was due to be archived, and I felt an obligation to the author and the publisher. In other words, although it looked interesting, I didn’t expect to give it five stars. But the sum of the book is so much more than its parts, and to get it, you really just have to read it.

Highly recommended to anyone and everyone.

[Zoe Zolbrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read several other books since I finished this, but Mot is the one I can't stop thinking about. It's a fascinating story, for one thing--a newly remarried middle-aged woman befriends a mentally ill homeless man and travels to see him not once, but twice, enjoying a companionship that's both warm and natural as well as fraught and unusual, while her work and home life are suffering. The prose is evocative and effortless, and I felt transported to the locations described, as if I had just been there, or was there still. It was one of those books that seemed realer than my life at times. And the questions the book poses are huge for anyone with a tendency for empathy: What are we looking for when we offer help? How much can we affect another's life? Where do you draw the line when you're trying to help someone from a position of relative comfort? I highly recommend this for anyone who wants a good, quick read (it's a short book) that will leave you with a deep impression and a lot to think about.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is simply a smart, compelling memoir, without a shred of preciousness or self-indulgence. This is about Mot, and mental illness and homelessness--and a woman's impulse to fix things (including her marriage) with material patches, and selfless engagement. There is so much to admire about this book, which won the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Award for Creative Non Fiction: Clean, insightful writing; a strange and fascinating central character and a narrator coming to terms with her human limitations; one of the best epilogues I've ever read. But mostly the elegance lies in the arc of the story and the unfettered telling of a modern-day woman's journey to an essential realization about the distance between our wants for others, and their needs for themselves. One of the best memoirs I've read.

[Polly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful and moving, though not in the least sentimental. Nor, really, what I expected. Wow.

[Claire Gilliland · Rating 5 out of 5]

My instructor, Dominik Heinrici, gave me this book during a summer professional development workshop for teachers, and thank god he did. This is an amazing look into the life of a man who most of society would rather ignore the existence of. Sarah Einstein captured the life of Mot beautifully, though many elements of his reality are far from that. This is an important book. As a young adult who is grappling with my own “standing” in society and questioning all of the implications within it for me and others, it was inspiring to read such an eye opening and empathic account.

[Laura Bentley · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the unique cover to the first chapter where I read "I'm here to visit Mot, a new and unlikely friend who wanders from place to place dragging a coterie of dead relatives, celebrities, Polish folktale villains, and Old Testament gods along with him in his head," I knew that I would finish this book. In fact, it's the best book that I've read this year. It's an intimate, captivating, and compassionate story of a homeless veteran and a brave woman who tries to help him.

[Lara Lillibridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mot is a memoir detailing the friendship between a woman at an impasse in her life and a homeless, mentally ill man. Carefully written, it informs what it is to be human and how sometimes in life we don't get the satisfying answers we hope for.

I quickly became immersed in the narrative and came to care deeply about both central characters. Sarah Einstein writes clearly but with a keen eye for the moments that illustrate the whole—it never bogs down in mundane.

[Sandra Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Einstein’s memoir is all those, what have now become, cliched phrases used about a wonderful book—”a stunning strength of language,” “tender,” “confrontational,” “grounded in clarity,” “insightful,” “compelling.” Every page, in every description of each character no matter how “minor,” in every interaction, Sarah Einstein writes with concrete, unsentimental directness about what it means to be human.

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review at RAIN TAXI of Sarah Einstein's beautiful Mot: A Memoir:

http://www.raintaxi.com/mot-a-memoir/

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing expose of both a social worker and a homeless vet whom circumstances threw together and Einstein's beautiful interrogation of what it all might mean. Must read!

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book for anyone who has done service, who has perhaps given too much in trying to save others. An unflinching look at what it really means for one person to try to change the world.

[Kate Belt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent storytelling and thoughtful self-reflection at the end of the book.

[Robyn Obermeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Seeing into the lives of others less fortunate is always sad, especially the homeless in America. Reading into what it is like to work in homeless shelters and the challenges of both the workers and the homeless is interesting. My 33 yr old son has been diagnosed with a thought disorder almost 10 yrs now. Ive gone to nami classes and done a lot of reading on mental illness. It isn't easy on him or me cause the way the brain works or disconnects is still such a mystery.We all have one and yet some struggle with voices and numbers and people and situations very differently. Reading into Mots thoughts and actions has made me more understanding of the effects and ways mental illness rears its ugly head.Nobody would want this disease and to be able to survive in it is mostly heartbreaking, but its good to know there are people who care and try to understand and not judge! Good job Sarah on putting this down on paper and sharing it!

[Spencer Bonds · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mot is an interesting read in that it fools you to believe it is a mediocre piece up until the final few chapters. I’m not sure if this is a reflection of Einstein’s personal growth as a writer, but the change occurs in break neck speed, transforming from what is essentially glorified blog posts of a trauma victim to the insights, reflections, and brutal honesty of a break room philosopher. In these, Einstein flexes her superb skills as a nonfiction writer to process and define her own character post-Mot, or, quite possibly, for the very first time, and wraps up the events of her late-stage-capitalism tragedy.
Insofar as the instantaneous changes in rhythm, prose, and personal development were purposeful, then the attempt would seem justified, but the execution would still lack the clarity or purposed subtlety needed to pull off such a master stroke in creative nonfiction.

[Olivia L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a powerful and beautiful memoir about a subject that could have easily devolved into sentimentality, but doesn't! Einstein befriends a homeless man at a time in her life when she is emotionally adrift and at a crossroads herself. Her insightful writing about their hopeful yet challenging friendship is realistic, compassionate, and deeply moving. I love this book.

[Cheryl Pallant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heartful portrait of a man who most wouldn't even notice. Honestly done. Bravo!

[Taube · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2011, Sarah Einstein’s essay, “Mot,” originally published by the literary journal Ninth Letter in 2009, won a Pushcart Prize. It was a beautifully realized essay describing the author’s friendship with a homeless veteran, Tom, who prefers to be referred to by the anagrammatic nomenclature, Mot.
As much as I enjoyed that essay, the brevity of the format necessarily left questions unanswered, suspended in space. The resulting portrait of Mot was like the tenuous remnants of a cobweb after a rain: One had to imagine the larger essence of the man and of the author’s friendship with the man. In a word? I wanted more. (Recognizing with an ancillary jouissance that “mot” in French means “word.”)
All this is to say, that, Pushcart Prize notwithstanding, this “Mot” is, at least for me, the “mot juste”-- a more dimensional, more fleshed out account of a man who attempted friendship with another despite the dark and terrifying delusions of the mental illness he struggled with on a daily basis.
In Einstein’s intensely riveting portrait, friendship with Mot is personal and very real--it is bowls of pho soup and apple pie in the back seat of a Camry. It is listening to "Car Talk" on National Public Radio and watching snippets of "Les Maitres Fous" on Youtube. Einstein's friendship with Mot is never construed as a rescue effort, a Messianic "klieg light" shining onto the darkness of mental illness, although it manages to offer small moments of personal illumination—whether by Mot or by the author herself: “This is a day when complex problems might have simple solutions, when buying light bulbs at Walmart is a real victory at the darkness.”

[Angelika Rust · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first, I received a free copy of this one in return for an honest review. And boy, am I going to honest the hell out of it.
As the title says, it is a memoir, a true story, of a woman and a friendship. The woman is Sarah, forty, and struggling to stay afloat in the mess her life has somehow become. Torn apart by a job she doesn't feel she's up to and a husband whose attention is fixed on his psychotic client, she finds an odd sort of peace, or at least some sort of getaway, in her friendship with Mot, a homeless, insane man, who wants nothing from her other than acceptance for who he is.
With almost brutal honesty, Sarah recounts the days of this brittle friendship. She tells of little bursts of light, of the voices Mot keeps hearing and who force him to live his life the way he does, of tiny steps towards one another, of fear and anger, exasperation and despair. She holds nothing back - not the self-doubt, not the attempts to change Mot into someone who might survive the next winter whether he wants it or not, not even the realization that she might need him more than he needs her. And most of all, Sarah speaks of understanding, of acceptance, as she and Mot carefully tread around their tiny common ground, trying to agree on a version of the truth they both can live with.
All this is crafted with so much skill, it makes me hope Sarah might one day turn to writing fiction. I'm looking forward to the tales she might spin. I truly don't know whom I admire more - the woman, or the writer.

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will say off the bat that memoirs and nonfiction essays are not my usual fare; I usually prefer genre fiction, plays or poetry as forms of expression. With this disclaimer then, I can safely say that Mot was one of the most interesting and moving books I have read in years.

I generally judge literature by three rough criteria:
1. quality of writing,
2. did I have a response (emotionally or intellectually) to it, and
3. did it stay with me. Mot fulfills all these, and more.

The author beautifully tackles the tough topics of homelessness and mental illness, which surround many of us, often invisibly, every day. Both of these issues often create a sense of awkwardness for those who want to care about others but lack the experience or the exposure: we would like to do something, but these problems are so far outside our personal sphere that we are often paralysed for fear of doing something inconsiderate and wrong - and then of course doing nothing at all.

In Mot, Einstein shows her experience and patience with the complex problems issuing from homelessness and mental illness, but never preaches or panders to her audience. In elegant prose, she lets us understand that she is often just as lost as the rest of us, not least with her friend Mot. Her experiences with a man who is a slave to frightening delusions are delicate, frightening and beautiful. Einstein doesn’t seem to set out to teach, only to tell a deeply personal story about an unusual friendship, and in that, teaches us perhaps more than we expected. Highly recommend.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you get when you commit to a friendship with a person who is intelligent, delusional, grandiose, and terrified? Sarah Einstein’s memoir explores her commitment to Mot, a man she meets during the course of her work managing a homeless shelter in West Virginia. As her friendship with Mot is tested by his eccentricity and her own fears, her marriage is tested on a parallel track. She treats both commitments with honesty, compassion, and more than a little self-awareness, but the main focus is on the friendship. Navigating this new kind of love, balancing her own needs for safety with the need to accept Mot's versions of reality, Einstein comes at last to a personal-is-political definition of friendship that will resonate with anyone who has cared about a person suffering from mental illness.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mot is a wonderful memoir, and Sarah Einstein an amazing writer. I devoured the book, reading it quickly, then revisiting my favorite parts to relish them. I like it so much that I bought, read, and loved the Kindle version, and now purchased the hardback in hopes I can get it signed. The memoir is full of integrity. She treats Mot, and all of the people in the memoir, with respect. I've read an article (maybe more than one) where she said she felt it very important to stay very truthful and honest, and as a reader I could tell that. She even treats her ex- with dignity. It's a magnificent book. You really should read it. I know my one reading and revisiting isn't all I'll ever do. It's a book that I'll revisit and reread more than once.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah and Mot are both flawed people, which is to say, people. I've read over and again that this is an 'unlikely' friendship but what are friendships if they are not the coming together of two flawed people who find their needs met in the other? There is so much compassion in these few pages. There is also a lot of reality here and reality doesn't always allow for compassion. I've consumed this book and would suggest it to anyone who reads. I'm handing it to my mother-in-law next.