
I Don’t Blame You
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I Don't Blame You is the story of losing a mother a mere two months before becoming a mother. It follows Ana through a year of going between her home in Portland and her mother's home base in New Jersey as her mother battled cancer and as Ana grew a baby. The narrative begins with backstory around her mother's early life being raised by a single mother in a Bronx tenement apartment and also her father's early years in depression-era Brooklyn, both parents raised in challenging circumstances by Italian immigrants. It takes the reader through her parents’ bitter divorce after raising three children and after twenty-five years of marriage, which left Ana’s mother, who was mentally unwell and unstable, to raise her alone.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Frances Badalamenti proves to be a talented and evocative writer. I Don't Blame You is a powerful, heady, debut novel, gorgeously interweaving the story of grief, acceptance, and love. A must read.
Chloe Caldwell, author of I'll Tell You In Person and Women
I Don't Blame You is a raw, irreverent, wrenching exploration of the trauma and joy of being a daughter and a mother.
Michelle Tea, author of Black Wave, How to Grow Up and Modern Tarot