The Things Between Us: A Memoir

The Montgomerys of Framingham, Massachusetts, are among the last of a dying breed -- New England WASPs who effortlessly combine repression, flamboyant eccentricity, and alcoholism. Fragmented by drink and dysfunction, the family had avoided assembling under one roof for more than a decade. But when Big Dad, the patriarch, was diagnosed with stomach cancer, the siblings all returned to their childhood home, Four Corner Farm, to help their parents navigate the specialists, treatment options, pain management, and, most difficult of all, their own anguish. "The Things Between Us" is Lee Montgomery's alternately wrenching and riotous story of her family reuniting as one of their own is dying. Even in healthy times, Big Dad moved carefully through life, taking responsibility for the farm, the cars, the house, and his wife. Meanwhile the irrepressible Mumzy drank her first gin each day at 8:45 a.m. and spent her time singing jazz standards and reliving the glory days when she rescued horses from the now defunct hunt club. Prickly and proud, the two tried always to keep their chins up. But Big Dad's cancer rattled their formidable denial, and their habitual coping mechanisms took on heightened meaning when he became sick and the family reconvened. In Big Dad's last months, Montgomery accompanied him on his daily walks as he bade farewell to the places where their lives had unfolded; she and her mother sang old songs, and eventually composed their own jazzy musical called "If You're Dying of Cancer, Do You Want Us to Tell You?" Montgomery's stunning memoir vividly evokes the often unspoken bonds between family members -- bonds made of memory, love, and disappointment. Heartbreaking, lyrical, and often hilarious, "The Things Between Us" hums with a sense of wonder as the author discovers anew the most familiar people in her life, herself among them.

Review :
"A monster mother, a beloved father, a trio of grown siblings who reunite to deal with a death in the family. . . . "The Things Between Us" is unflinching and absolutely as fascinating as it is sad. It's also a scathing attack on the practice of medicine in America today and a -- perhaps inadvertent -- plea for us to rethink the role of hospice and our dying process."-- Carolyn See, author of "Making a Literary Life" "An immensely heartfelt book, chronicling the slow decline and death of a beloved parent. What makes this memoir moving and memorable is that the love is firmly rooted in honesty, in a generous but still clear-sighted assessment of one family's struggles, alongside the closeness." -- Aimee Bender, author of "Willful Creatures" "Like all family stories, "The Things Between Us" is a tale of great complexity. Though we meet the Montgomerys -- idiosyncratic, funny, dramatic, vaguely glamorous -- during the final months of Lee's father's illness, they are wildly entertaining. As they try to locate some kind of emotional equilibrium, we see that there is really only one thing between them, and that is love."-- Whitney Otto, author of "A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity" "This is not just another memoir of alcoholism and family dysfunction -- this is the smartest, funniest, warmest, and most wicked of alcoholism and family dysfunction memoirs to come along in many years. Lee Montgomery paints flawed and aching people with a touching and lovely palette."-- Anthony Swofford, author of "Jarhead" "This memoir of a beloved father's dying is about resilience. What might appear as courage is instead the terrible and hilarious mechanics of a daughter's coping with both her father's failing and her outre family's inability to cope. Lee Montgomery draws the reader down a poignant, frightening, and sensual path that begins with word of her father's illness to the final separation of his sparkling spirit from his depleted body. The journey is unforgettable." -- Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, author of "Girls of Tender Age"