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The Book Case

Heidi Reimer Examines Motherhood, Sacrifice, and Redemption

The Book Case

ABC News

Fiction, Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.1766 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's always a pleasure for us to talk to a debut author and we have a good one this week in Heidi Reimer. Her novel, The Mother Act, is the story of mothers and daughters and the heap of complexities that come in those relationships. How do we know we are going to be a good mom? Once we have a child are we ALWAYS a mother first? This book asks these questions and challenges the reader to question the concepts of motherhood, empathy and family. Books mentioned in this week’s episode: The Mother Act by Heidi Reimer Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Dear Life by Alice Munro Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives by Lori Leibovich Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott Middlemarch by George Eliot The Giver by Lois Lowry Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.5

Welcome back to the bookcase.

0:38.1

Good to have you with us for another week and another good book, Kate.

0:41.3

I think this one is easy to recommend.

0:44.0

It absolutely is.

0:45.1

I always love it when we get to do debut authors.

0:47.5

I mean, I don't know if I'm arrogant enough to think we're of any help,

0:50.5

but I always like reading somebody we've not read before.

0:53.0

And Heidi Reimer's new book,

0:55.0

The Mother Act, is a really fascinating study of mothers and daughters. And also, I think, a really

1:02.1

interesting portrait of empathy and how we gain empathy or how we don't gain empathy.

1:08.1

How would you sum it up? If you had to sum up the plot in like little, how would you do that?

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