Title of Post
Her Last Death: A Memoir
Bibliographic Details
Title - Her Last Death: A Memoir
Author - Susanna Sonnenberg
Date of Publication – January 1, 2008
Publisher – Scribner; 1st Scribner Hardcover Ed edition
Summary
In the biography, Her Last Death: A Memoir by Susanna Sonnenberg, Susy is known as the main character, Penelope as her sister, and Daphne as her mother. The setting in the beginning of the book starts off when Susy is all grown-up, who is married and have two sons. In the very first paragraph, Susy got a phone call from her Aunt Irene telling her that her mother, Daphne might not live and actually die this time from previous lies she had told her daughters. The beginning of the novel shows the ending of the story a little bit and then after chapter one, the story starts off when she was three years old. In other words, this book has a flashback. Susy’s parents are divorced and when Susy was a little child she would take care of Penelope as if she was the mother of her and while their real biological mother went out on dates, got drunk late at nights and had seizures.
Throughout the book, Susy moves out of the house and started to stay in dorms at the schools she attended because she couldn’t stand being around her mother for certain reasons. Some of those reasons are because of her mother slept with the boys she liked, ruining Susy and her relationships with her friends, and couldn’t act properly and professionally around Susy and her boyfriend when out at dinner. Daphne would always leave her visit ruining Susy’s feelings and something that Susy cared about a lot. After her mother’s death, Penelope would not talk to Susy because she couldn’t even go to her own mother’s funeral even though they didn’t have a good mother-to-daughter relationship. In the end Susy had drifted away from her mother throughout her lifetime and felt happy about it after her mother’s death.
Quotation
“At home I guided my sister from toothbrush to hairbrush, tugged her tights on, scheduled our dental checkups, thawed peas, scrambled eggs (Sonnenberg 97).”
Quotation Context
Before this quote is read in this biography, Susy’s mother had many seizures and “spasms” due to her health issue. Since Daphne is all focused and busy with her health issues and trying not to be addicted to drugs, Susy was the one that had to keep things right inside the house as in taking care of both her mother and her little sister. I thought that this was a good quote in the book because it shows that even little kids can be responsible from taking care of herself and her little sister to making sure there is food on the table at meals times and in the fridge.
