Reading 'The Fragments of My Father' by Sam Mills -- A Review by Peter Leyland
' People need to become the authors as well as the subjects of their own stories' I read this comment in a book by Ben Knights called The Listening Reader as I was completing this month's blog and I thought it summed up my own thoughts on the writing of memoir, a mode which I have used in previous posts. This blog is about a memoir I have read recently by Sam Mills and is called 'The Fragments of my Father'. It also relates to my ideas on The Companionship of Books from last month. ‘The Fragments of My Father’ is a compelling autobiographical memoir by author, Sam Mills, who became the chief carer for her father after her mother’s death at 65. In this memoir the author tells of the schizophrenic illness that afflicted her father from an early age, and how it affected both her and her family during the long years from her childhood, through her growing up, and to her present life as an author and publisher. I read the book in three days without stopping, and it...