Heidi Reimer is a novelist and writing coach. Her debut novel, The Mother Act, is now out from Penguin Random House. Her writing interrogates the lives of women, usually those bent on breaking free of what they’re given to create what they yearn for. Her front row seat to The Mother Act’s theatrical world began two decades ago when she met and married an actor, and her immersion in motherhood began when she adopted a toddler and discovered she was pregnant on the same day.
At Electric Lit Reimer tagged eight "nuanced stories that explore the complicated reasons behind mothers leaving their children." One title on the list:
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl GonzalezRead about the other entries on the list.
Olga and Prieto haven’t seen their mother, Blanca, in over 25 years, since she abandoned them as young teenagers to fight for a militant political cause. Theironly contact is the letters she sends, always knowing what they’re up to, frequently judging their life choices. She’s proud of Prieto’s success as a congressman representing their Latinx Brooklyn neighborhood but disapproves of Olga’s work as the go-to wedding planner of the one percent, work Olga comes to realize she embraced in rebellion to the very values that led Blanca to leave. What different choices might she have made, Olga wonders, had her mother deemed her worthy of time and affection? Blanca is an unfulfilled longing, existing to Olga as “a floating entity,” her only location “inside the many envelopes that arrived from destinations unknown”—until the day she resurfaces in the flesh, asking for help.
--Marshal Zeringue
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