Maya Shanbhag Lang - What We Carry: A Memoir

This memoir is more than the sum of its parts.[It] becomes a larger meditation on motherhood, daughterhood and feminismclaiming oneself above all, and the moral struggle involved in doing so.In exquisitely precise prose, [Maya Shanbhag] Lang makes an argument that honesty is whats truly empowering.

Mary Beth Keane, The New York Times Book Review

What We Carry is a raw look at how women carry their lives (and secrets) until theyre at their most vulnerable.

PopSugar

Langs memoir focuses on the authors relationship with her mother, an Indian-American doctor, who became suddenly emotionally distant and unsupportive when Lang had her first child. When the source of her mothers change turned out to be Alzheimers, Lang began to discover that the woman her mother was may have never existed at all.

Bustle

A book with such a brave message.

The Observer

[Lang] writes in absolutely beautiful compelling prose about what it means to be a daughterand a mothertoday.

Good Morning America

Maya always looked up to her motherthe woman who immigrated to the U.S. and pursued her career while keeping a traditional Indian home. It isnt until years later that Maya realizes her mother has Alzheimers. To keep her memories alive, she tells her daughter everything about her past, and it turns out Maya didnt know as much about her mother as she thought.

Parade

Part self-discovery, part family history[Langs] analysis of the shifting roles of mothers and daughters, particularly through the lens of immigration, help[s] to challenge her familys mythologyReaders interested in examining their own family storieswill connect deeply with Langs beautiful memoir.

Library Journal (starred review)

A stirring memoir exploring the fraught relationships between mothers and daughtersastutely written and intense[What We Carry] will strike a chord with readers.

Publishers Weekly

Lang is an immediately affable and honest narrator who offers an intriguing blend of revelatory personal history and touching insight.

BookPage

A book about mothers, daughters, family, and the expectations weand societyput on ourselves as women.

BookRiot

A study of a relationship that has oftentimes been elevated to the position of the supernatural in art, motherhood gets a different kind of visibility in this memoir that is being hailed as a nuanced take not to be missed.

Telegraph India

Its no secret that a brilliant parent can cast a long shadow over her child. In What We Carry, Langs mother becomes conspicuous in absence: once a doctor who seemed to balance home and family with an acrobats ease, she begins to disappear from her daughters life as Alzheimers takes hold. Somewhere between raising her own child and struggling to catch the woman who raised her, Lang finds herself.

Read It Forward

In this poignant and moving book,[Lang] lays bare the weight we shoulder as women.There is an immense universal appeal to her words.

Platform magazine

What We Carryis nothing short of radical, not just because [Lang is] a fortysomething Indian-American woman but also because [she] centers issues of mothering, daughtering, caregiving for a parent, and the importance of self-care. Taking on the role of caregiver for her physician mother provided the impetus to writing [the memoir], which exploresthe ever-shifting stories that she was toldand that she told herself.

The Los Angeles Review of Books

What We Carry is an exquisite exploration of the boundlessness and limitations of love that makes us examine the unknowability of who we are and the strength of our bonds with those who shape us. This story is so elegantly told, with such rawness and compassion, that I fell madly in love with Maya and her complicated, unforgettable mother and could not put this book down.

Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

A dazzling, courageous memoir about the weight we carry as women, daughters, and mothersand what happens when we let goWhat We Carry is a love letter to everyone who has swum through turbulent water before reaching the shores of selfhood.

Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists

A gorgeous memoir about mothers, daughters, and the tenacity of the love that grows between what is said and what is left unspoken.

Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk

Maya Shanbhag Lang thought she knew her capable physician-mother, but when Alzheimers hit her mother early, Lang found herself adrift in a sea of unwelcome truths and ambiguous loss. Anyone facing the ordeal of caregiving, with all its love, loss, and unexpected gifts, will be inspired by this searing and extraordinary memoir.

Katy Butler, New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heavens Door

What We Carry is a wise, tender, and unswervingly honest memoir that reads like a mystery. With emotional precision, Lang investigates the many ways we participate in the often-painful mythology of family. Just as thrillingly, Langs ultimate revelation is a hopeful one, reminding us that we are stronger than we think.

Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men

A profoundly moving memoir about secrets and traumain exquisite prose, Lang writes about her extraordinary mother and the cruel circumstances that complicate their relationship. At its heart, What We Carry is about one of the greatest gifts any parent can give a child: the power to save yourself.

Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Your Life Book Club

How do we really know the ones we love? Lang thought she knew her Indian immigrant mother through her stories until profound truths and unsettling secrets began to emerge, giving Lang an opportunity to come to terms with the ties that bound them. Truly, this is a gorgeous memoir.

Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You