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Mimi Malloy, At Last
Julia MacDonnell
2014, 276 pages
Fiction
Meet Mimi Malloy: she was born into an Irish-Catholic brood of seven (all girls) and has done her best to raise six daughters of her own. Now they are grown and Mimi, porced, and having “taken early retirement,” wants nothing more than to enjoy her life. A promising friendship with the super of her building is all the excitement she wants or needs. Then her sister Patty’s grandson sent everyone a questionnaire to fill out for his family tree project. After an appointment with her doctor, Mimi learns that the MRI showed black spots in her brain, areas of atrophy that may send her to one of those storage facilities for unwanted antiques. She isn’t going down without a fight, however, and after she finds a blue pendant in her closet and the sisters and daughters hold a meeting at her apartment to discuss the family tree, memories both known and repressed begin to surface. Everyone wants to know what happened to Fagan, the sister who was sent away. The mystery of her disappearance is solved as out of the ashes of Mimi’s history we discover the redemptive power of family bonds.
