BETHEL — After surviving a traumatic childhood in 1970s New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, author Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Newtown with her wife of nearly 20 years.

On Friday, October 18, from 7 to 9 pm, the author will share her story at Bethel’s Byrd’s Books.

Sustaining a fragile mother-daughter bond, while navigating the turbulent waters of their shared lives and the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, are the basis of Altman’s latest book, Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing.

The author will share the process and inspiration for her book over refreshments.

Admission is free. Reservations are requested, however, and can be done at conta.cc/2l2HA6l. Copies of Motherland can also be ordered ahead of the October 18 program through that link.

In speaking with The Newtown Bee in August ahead of the book’s release, Ms Altman said that life with her mother “has been sort of like a roller coaster ride.” The book’s title comes from that idea, in fact.

“When I was a kid, there were amusement parks all over the East Coast that were named Adventureland or Playland or Waterland, so it seemed appropriate that I call [the book] Motherland,” she shared. The book was spawned, she said, after Ms Altman spent a year writing the column “Feeding My Mother” for The Washington Post.

“Motherland tackles issues of maternal love and dependency in an authentic way that causes the reader to flip each page with eager curiosity, like a child peering under an adhesive bandage to see if their cut has healed with time,” Newtown Bee Reporter Alissa Silber wrote (“Altman shares ‘Cantankerous,’ ‘Love- Filled’ Maternal Struggles In Her Latest Memoir,” August 9, 2019).

Elissa Altman is the critically acclaimed author of Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking and the James Beard Award-winning blog of the same name, and Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw.

Her work has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The New York Times, Tin House, The Rumpus, Dame Magazine, LitHub, Saveur, and The Washington Post.

Her work has been anthologized in Best Food Writing six times. A finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, Altman has taught the craft of memoir at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Loft Literary Center, 1440 Multiversity, and Ireland’s Literature and Larder program, and has appeared live on stage at TEDx and The Public, on Heritage Radio, and widely on NPR.

Byrd’s Books is located at 178 Greenwood Avenue, adjacent to The Toy Room. For additional information, visit byrdsbooks.indielite.org or call 203-730-BYRD (203-730-2973).