With or Without You

With or Without You (2013) by Domenica Ruta. A sparkling memoir about growing up with a crazy mother near Boston in the 1980s. Ruta's mother Kathi was a screamer, and a drug addict, and their house was piled high with trash that accumulated because it was too much trouble to take it out. But her mother was also indulgent, sometimes keeping Domenica home from school to watch movies on TV. Ruta has written a memoir that somehow manages to mix love with revulsion, telling the true story as she remembers it but yet somehow having a reserve of affection for her mother. It's an entertaining book, but somehow Ruta seems to have abbreviated the story, to have left important details out. This is a good memoir, but compared to others I've read it doesn't quite stack up. Grade: B