Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver

“. . . makes you feel as though a kindred soul is speaking to you.” —Readers’ Favorite

At the age of sixty, Gretchen Staebler promises to spend one year in her childhood home caring for her stubbornly independent ninety-six-year-old mother—sort of a middle-aged gap year. Then her mother will move to assisted living and she will return to her own independent life.

It doesn’t go as planned.

Rather than a retrospective, this mother-daughter story unfolds in real time with gripping honesty, bringi...