My Mother, My Madness

A woman reluctantly takes on the responsibility of putting her eccentric rebellious mother into a retirement home, and managing her care. She has her own daughter to raise and nurture, a marriage and a business to hold together, and her own psychological troubles due in good part to how she was mothered. My mother, my madness is Colleen Higgs’s diary of her mother’s last ten years. It is at once funny, harrowing, mundane, chaotic, and full of insight. It is a rich and moving story which unfolds through its characters like a novel.

"my mother, my madness is a search for self in the murkiness of fractured/broken mothering. It reminds that within the darkness of our burdens we can find light, love, and acceptance." - Tracy Going"Colleen Higgs's journal entries express the tedium and despair of caring for a collapsed parent, but streaming beneath them is an unrelenting courage. Her spare, gripping lines are a quiet hymn to a daughter's wholeness of spirit despite the brokenness of her mother." - Tracey Farren"She asks the primary questions: what is love, what is good enough mothering, how does a grown daughter negotiate a mother's last years. my mother, my madness unfolds not only as a narrative but as a meditation, a spiralling towards the freedom that love and understanding bring." - Joan Metelerkamp

Colleen Higgs is the author of two collections of poetry (Halfborn Woman, 2004, and Lava Lamp Poems, 2011) and a short story collection (Looking for Trouble – Yeoville Stories, 2012). She founded Modjaji Books in 2007 and, after publishing more than 150 books, is still Modjaji’s manager and publisher.