Occasions of Sin: A Memoir

by Sandra Scofield

"A beautiful, painful book about religion, family, sex, and loss."―Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club In 1959, when Sandra Scofield was fifteen, she came home to stay in West Texas after years in Catholic boarding schools. She believed her presence would inspire her invalid mother to live. What she found―a fractured family; a distracted, dying mother―nudged her into the tumult of late adolescence and the awakening of her sexuality. More than forty years later, Scofield looks back on her Catholic girlhood and the ways in which her relationship with her mother was grounded in their intertwined aspirations for holiness, achievement, and love. Writing on the brink of old age, she looks back ruefully but without bitterness, forgiving both her mother's frailty and her own.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

258 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Mary King]

I liked Scofield's tone and the story is so uniquely of a particular time and place... I couldn't imagine her story of being left with a religious order at such a young age happening in the US today. As a girl who grew up Catholic, myself, I found Scofield's writing about devotions and the stories of the saints really hit home and were some of the most moving in the book. Her presentation of the limitations her mother, grandmother, and the chorus of women in the book is striking as well.

The comparisons to Mary Karr led me to expect a different book, though. Occasions of Sin is a great memoir, but the only similarity to The Liar's Club is that both are set in Texas. I love Mary Karr's writing, but Scofield's tone is absolutely nothing like it. It is subtle and sweet, thoughtful and meditative where Karr is explosive, profane, caustic, unflinching, and dark. Both are great, but I wish reviewers would not compare the two writers simply because they are both women writing from Texas. It might lead readers to be disappointed with Scofield's meditative style if they are expecting fireworks.

[Carrie]

A really moving memoir of the author's Catholic childhood and the ways in which her mother's chronic illness was wrapped up in her feelings about religion and adult sexuality. The only thing that kept in from being perfect--though it's still quite good--is that I think it ended too soon. She recounts a traumatic event that happened several years after her mother's death but doesn't seem able or willing to make the last series of connections. One of the book's strengths, however, is that throughout most of it Scofield deftly intertwines her adult perspective with her childhood one.

[Jinny]

A memoir written about the author's relationship with her mother throughout her life. The beginning of the book is fast and the middle sometimes gets hard to read. With a mother constantly sick and fragile (both physically and mentally), the author's written dance of being a good daughter and exploring the world through her own eyes is well expressed and written. This book touched me because I am too a recovering catholic like the author.

[Lesley]

I can't finish this book. Her writing just isn't my style and the book is very slow.

[Noreen]

This memoir is elegantly written, focused and poignant.

[Althea]

Very strange coming of age story of a young woman who was deeply religious and overly (I thought) attached to her very sick and somewhat crazy mother.

[Wendy Knight]

A memoir without hope. Interesting but depressing.

[Esther Bradley-detally]

My husband and I are moving, and in between I read gutsy memoirs, and Sancra Scofield is amazing.

[Leanne Schrotzberger]

Boring. Kind of a "poor me" book about Sandra's childhood because her mother was "sick" and thus "different".

[Alison McLennan]

I don't normally read memoirs but I loved Sandra Scofield's.