Author(s)
Anja Snellman
Illustrator(s)
Publication date
2002
Publisher
Otava Publishing Company
Format info
270 pages

Mother with Dog

Äiti ja koira

The Bergman marriage is buried in silence. The divorce elicits only a few shrugs and halfhearted surprise: They were still married? After all, divorces come and go, like coronary angioplasties, bankruptcies, prostate cancers, heroin overdoses, and mental problems. Andy Bergman gets the townhouse and a straw-blond laboratory assistant, and he continues his research into a Viagra for women. Meeri gets a rental apartment, three adult children who shun work and seek self-realization, and a grandson.

The shock, grief, and bitterness are kept appropriately civilized and apologetic, and the story unfolds as expected—until Meeri meets a dog that cannot bark and a young painter creating a fresco on a ceiling in a luxury cruise ship. Then she learns about a coffee commercial and a production team desperately in need of a dog, a fresco, and a woman who looks like Buster Keaton. Her life changes in an instant, and this is too much for the family. Men routinely flaunt younger girlfriends and other trophies, but is a younger lover appropriate for mothers? Even for middle-aged mothers?

Mother with Dog examines this delicious turn of events from the perspectives of the various family members.

 

Previously published in

Latvian (Atena)
Lithuanian (Mintis)