Farrago: A Memoir of Markie and Me

Farrago, from the Latin farragin, is a word that means a confused mixture. This memoir, sharing the story of the relationship between author Diana B. Roberts and her mother, Markie, is just that—a farrago, containing neither positive nor negative judgment.

Markie Byron Roberts was eighty-five years old when she passed away—a long life for anyone, but particularly for a woman who’d been institutionalized for mental illness six times, beginning at age sixteen, and who had been unwillingly sub...