It Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks: A Memoir of a Mother and Daughter

For every reader, male or female, who has ever had a mother. "The sole principle governing me through life was that everything wrong with me -- my behavior,my anxiety, my neuroses, all my misery: my entire personality, in other words -- was due to the fact that my mother was a hideous parent. I had lived completely certain of that one thing. And now,at middle age, when I have to contend with my skin sagging and my ass falling, I am also forced to face the fact that my mother loves me more than anyone else on the face of God's green earth and that we are bound by a connection that is supernatural and complete. She gave birth to me. She is my mother. I know what it means to love your child so much that everything prior to that is irrelevant and nonsensical. It has completely changed my idea of what being a daughter is. This book is a chronicle of that odyssey." Catherine Burns

About the Author :
Catherine L. Burns is a successful actress and producer -- having appeared as a regular character on the TV show Malcolm in the Middle as well as starring in feature films such as 'Pushing Tin' and, more recently, 'Keeping the Faith' with Ben Stiller. This is her first book.

Review :
'"It Hit Me Like a Ton of Bricks" is written with such disarming honesty that it would be uncomfortably unsettling if it weren't tempered by equal doses of stunning wit. The story sneaks up on you and grabs you and before you know it, it's tomorrow morning. Burns can flat out write and she does it with her eyes wide open, foot flat on the pedal and all the windows down -- it's an exhilarating read. I couldn't find a word out of place.' Alexandra Fuller, author of 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' 'From the very first sentence of Catherine Burns' simultaneously very funny and very poignant book, it is apparent that we are in assured hands. The ambivalence, closeness, and fractious bond of mothers and daughters has rarely been so keenly and beautifully observed. Filled with moments of hilarity and heartbreak, any reader, male or female, who has ever had a mother, will find here vindication and finely calibrated sympathy. It shouldn't come as a complete surprise that Burns is an indelible literary presence; anyone who has had the privilege to see her act cannot forget her. But still, what an accomplishment it is to find that, on paper, she is also possessed of that rarest and most yearned -- for of qualities: a voice.' David Rakoff, author of 'Fraud'