I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This: A Memoir

An Amazon Best Book of August 2016: Nadja Spiegelman--daughter of Maus creator Art Spiegelman and New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly--is no different from many daughters out there who have fraught relationships with their mothers. But not many mothers would agree to do what the Mouly matriarchs did—be interviewed for a book about their lives, a project Nadja hoped would answer some painful questions, and begin to bridge the emotional divides between them. The result is the poignant I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This, not just a memoir about mothers and daughters (and grandmothers), but a story about stories and the malleability of memory. Spiegelman discovers that both her mother’s and grandmother’s accounts of the same events were often vastly (and heartbreakingly) different, yet neither was being more or less genuine. We interpret memories through the lens of our emotional state and experiences, and over the years we overwrite certain details—adding color here, omitting something there—creating telling palimpsests that help explain who we are and why we do what we do. Spiegelman is a skilled writer, especially considering the thorny material. Moreover, you get a sense that she accomplished what she set out to do. In a larger context, it also serves as a valuable reminder to try and understand the motivation behind other people’s actions, not to mention our own. As this memoir attests, therein lies forgiveness, and the fortitude to forge ahead. --Erin Kodicek, The Amazon Book Review