Seeking a mother's day gift that's a little out of the ordinary?

Hey publicity/media peeps: desperate for a mother's day story a little out of the ordinary? 

May I recommend 'The Meaning Of Children': a book of short fiction...motherhood without an epidural. Because growing up takes longer than you'd think. And the process isn't always pretty. 

Not the 'hearts & flowers' kind of mother's day gift...more like the kind of book your bff hands you, saying, "Read this..."

Abortion, homophobia, foster kids, bondage, romance, an epiphany at St. Joseph's Oratory...a misunderstood eight-year-old, a suicidal daycare worker having a very bad day, a mother who lost a son in Vietnam. These are the characters you'll find in the award-winning 'The Meaning Of Children.'

Available in paperback and e-book versions.

A couple of recent reader reviews:

"Akerman takes you back to the time you were a child. No matter you did not grow up in Montreal or Jewish, the situations, conflicts, joys and fears are universal.
Akerman grounds emotions with rich descriptions and a strong sense of place," ~twalker on Amazon.com and

"Entering the world of 'The Meaning Of Children' is like wrapping myself in the blanket my grandmother knit for me.I can feel every word, hear every sound, and be taken to a familiar place in my soul. You are a brilliant woman with a great spirit whose writing will resonate with many. Thank you." ~Judith Litvack on Facebook

David Adams Richards Prize
CBC- Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers' ChoiceContest Top 10

More here: http://beverlyakerman.blogspot.ca/2012/04/perfect-for-mothers-day-meaning-of.html

The Meaning of Children, now on an e-book (don't forget: Amazon has free apps for other devices!).
http://amzn.to/AiGGsm

http://www.cbc.ca/cinqasix/books/2012/04/02/cutting-out-the-middle-man/

“Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others.”
~Anne Chudobiak, The Montreal Gazette

“This isn’t the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment…[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.”
~Katie Hewitt, The Globe & Mail

TV & Radio Interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0i9teebBxk; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyOp2wQlxvk; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djOXwJasZes

The Meaning Of Children: on Mother's Day and Abortion

Just listening once more to my interview with the lovely, charming, and whip smart Anne Lagacé Dowson, a wonderfully generous interviewer and person. And I came across this discussion near the end about motherhood, feminism, abortion, and mother's day that I'm really happy with...she made it so easy to talk with her and I'm really grateful to her and to everyone who took the time to help nurture my little book...so here's a transcript of part of the interview, and I'll post the Youtube video below. 

Hope you enjoy and find some food for thought here. And, of course, in The Meaning Of Children!

Anne Lagacé Dowson

BA: ...As feminists coming of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s, we were so keen on making the best of all the opportunities that had been denied us for generations that I think we bought into the idea that teaching and nursing and mothering and care giving are lesser occupations. And of course they aren’t. They’re very, very important to all of us, especially as we age and become more and more dependent on caregivers. So I just am hoping partly to honour that fact of women’s lives.

ALD: In time for mother’s day. So if you are casting about for the perfect mother’s day gift, this might be it. The book is called The Meaning Of Children by Montreal author Beverly Akerman and it’s a collection of 14 short stories which sort of covers the range of experience from the point of view of children, Mums, and also aging parents as well. It’s all there in this lovely little book…short stories about life in a family that might just resemble yours…

You do make a lot of Montreal references in some the stories…and it’s very fun to read stories based and rooted in Montreal…lots of references to the Jewish community and family practices and so on…

What’s your sense of how your feminism has coloured the stories?

BA: I think it definitely has coloured the stories. There’s a story about abortion…I’m a prochoice feminist. It’s a very hard decision for a lot of people but I’m still glad that it’s a decision that is ours to make and not some external group trying to run our lives…

ALD: I thought that was a very brave story, actually, that you wrote. Because I think you’re writing about something that a lot of people have experienced but still feel very badly about talking about. It’s not out there in the civil discourse or in the public discussions of what family life is about.

BA:  I don’t think people feel comfortable acknowledging that they have had an abortion or that they’re related to someone who has. It’s still a very private family matter…

We’re very, very lucky to have grown up in the era in which we have where we do have so many more options than our mothers and grandmothers had. And we have to protect those options for the future generations. I think that’s very important too.

ALD: What will you be doing on mother’s day?

BA: I guess going to brunch with my parents! I’m lucky enough to have both my parents so…and getting cards and kisses from my kids.

ALD: And flowers, hopefully. That’s always a nice feature of mother’s day. But really, mother’s day should be each of our respective birthdays in some sense. You were speaking about some family member…

BA: My father-in-law thought on your birthday you should go and honour your mother because she went through so much. And he would know, he put his parents through a lot.

ALD: Well, we all do. Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you on the publication of this book and I hope it goes far, far afield for you.

BA: Thank you very much. I hope people enjoy it.

ALD: A wonderful gift for mother’s day, perhaps more long lived than the usual cut flowers...

PIE

Some folks say your hands can tell the story of your life. Well, my hands cain't talk, but they've made so many pies, I bet they could do it themselves if you cut 'em off and gave 'em the right ingredients, I sure do.

'Course, I ain't made pie in going on forty years now. But for me, pie's like ridin' a bike: it's something I'll never forget.

It's the crust ever'one frets on. You got to measure out two cups of flour exactly, and a teaspoon salt. Eamon liked to tease me about this. He'd say, “Been making pie long?”

And I'd go, “My whole life entire.”

And he'd say, “And you still measuring?”

There's things I did by feel. Mothering, for instance. Baking, I measured.

Mix that flour and salt in a bowl. I always used my largest, white with blue stripes round the side. A wedding gift from my Mama, come in a nested set, three different sizes. Like him and his two brothers, Eamon liked to say. Then cut in a cup of Crisco with a pastry blender, looks sort of like a small harp. When he was young and still in the kitchen, Eamon'd play on it a time or two, just to show me. You got to work that fat in real good, blend it, all the way through. The recipes say “till it looks like small peas,” but that ain't nowhere near enough. I pity the woman what tries to make piecrust from the recipe on the side of a tin of Crisco, I sure do. You got to mix it in completely. Stop too soon, all you got's lumps of fat with flour on the outside. Never get a piecrust out of that. Get it right and it clumps up on its own. More you mix, the bigger they get. Pea-size ain't near enough, no sir. Needs to be lima beans. Bigger, even.

Then add your water, a tablespoon at a time. Mix well after each one. Four tablespoons in all, that's a quarter cup. Less sometimes, if it's real humid.

It was the day that Eamon left, ever'body's clothes sticking to 'em like a second skin.

Well.

Dust your hands with flour, make the dough into a ball. Knead it a bit if you like, just to be sure. And don't pay no never mind to them that says too much handling'll make that pie crust tough. You don't got to worry about that at all, uh-uh. The more you handle it, the better.

Babies are like that, too. Folks think you spoil 'em, picking them up whenever they cry. But some babies need it. They just have to feel your hands on 'em. You can carry them around with you all day if you have to. No sir, if it's one thing I know, holding them close is the making of men, not the ruining.

Next, you roll out that dough. Cut it in two. Plunk half on a piece of wax paper and dust it with a little flour, soft as talc. Cover with more of that wax paper, a little flour to keep that from sticking, too. A bottle of pop will do in a pinch if you don't have a rolling pin. Roll it thin, peel the top paper off, and take the bottom with the pie crust on it and flip it into a pie plate. Peel the paper off real careful-like, but don't pay no mind if it tears--just dip your fingers in some flour and press it right back. Mends it up and no one'll ever know the difference. But you can only compare a boy and a pie so far.

Put the filling in, roll the other crust out, too, and put that on top. Crimp the sides together real good so it don't leak none and cut some slits on top, for the steam.

Bake it, four hundred-twenty-five degrees, forty-five minutes to an hour, depending what-all's inside.

Best pie I ever made? Oh, that was on an early summer day, like I said, more'n forty years ago now. Ain't never made another. Promised myself I wouldn't, not till he come back home.

Well.

I remember it like yesterday. All of us smiling and laughing, talking and talking about nothing really, no sir. Eamon was like a brand-new penny that day, shining, handsome, everything before him. Telling me how much he loved me and respected his daddy, the two of them clapping each other on the back every time they was in spitting distance. Eamon even said he loved his germy younger brothers, punching them in the shoulder all day long, and then hugging them tight, just the once. His daddy was so proud of him. Funny how a suit with brass buttons can make a man lose all sense.

“It's an honour to serve,” Eamon said. And I knew what he meant, I surely did.

The whole family was there, uncles and aunts, cousins, friends and neighbours, too. Even the Mayor, like it was some goddamn Fourth of July. We laid on a barbeque, just the way he liked it—ribs, cole slaw, potato salad, devilled eggs, corn on the cob, biscuits, watermelon, and of course his favourite, rhubarb pie. Made four of them that morning. Ever'body said I made the lightest crust around. Like I told you, the trick is to work it enough, to get everything mixed in just right.

Women often fail at pie because they give up too soon.

I brought it out to him, still warm from the oven, ice cream on the side. Eamon liked it that way, the tart bleeding into the sweet.

The light from the sun slanted long and low.

“If anything happens,” he said.

And I hushed him, wouldn't hear it. Just wouldn't. I told him, “You finish that pie, now. Your ice cream's melting in the heat.”

(A story from my award winning collection, The Meaning Of Children, also available as an e-book; "Pie" originally published by Gemini Magazine. Winner of their first Flash Fiction Contest)

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