There is no shortage of memoirs (and novels, for that matter) tracing the often rocky landscape of mother-daughter relationships. But Erika J. Simpson's debut memoir blazes its own path through this familiar yet unpredictable realm. She skillfully utilizes several techniques to elevate what could have been a mournful tale of trauma and loss into something far more eloquent and emotionally affecting.

THIS IS YOUR MOTHER is formally inventive and unfolds in two parallel timelines. In one, Simpson recalls her youth in Atlanta, where she struggled to grow up amid the chaos of her mother's instability. Sallie Carol was once a respected teacher, and Simpson's older sister grew up in a fairly settled household, with memories of her mom gainfully employed. However, by the time Simpson was forming her childhood memories, Sallie Carol already had survived one brain tumor that was predicted to kill her. She had descended into financial insecurity and undiagnosed mental illness.

"[Simpson] skillfully utilizes several techniques to elevate what could have been a mournful tale of trauma and loss into something far more eloquent and emotionally affecting."

This narrative is interwoven with a second one, which leads ultimately to Sallie Carol's death in an Atlanta hospice facility. By the time she finally succumbs to her illness, she has survived several bouts of cancer and other health issues over the course of her life. So in some ways, Simpson can't quite believe that her mom isn't going to beat the odds just one more time. What she goes through as she comes to terms with the impending loss --- and then the actual loss --- offers a glimpse into complicated grief. Her feelings of emptiness and loss, of a sort of disbelief, are compounded by occasional feelings of relief that never again will she have to worry about her mom, or figure out how to loan her money she doesn't have, or fear that she's going to wind up back in jail.

Simpson --- who has won awards for one of the chapters in the book, which was originally published as a stand-alone essay --- is a sophisticated writer. Although each of these two narrative strands play out roughly chronologically, at times they also wind around one another, with the same relapse or arrest referenced across timelines and giving the impression --- perhaps akin to Simpson's own feelings of always being on the brink of disaster --- that these periods of crisis and chaos have happened over and over again. She also experiments and plays with form in the book, utilizing transcriptions, television screenplays and scripture as inspiration for how she writes some sections.

Scripture is a recurring theme, particularly the ways in which Simpson recalls her mother's aphorisms that continue to guide her way of approaching the world. Despite Sallie Carol's many tumultuous and unsteady periods, what sticks with Simpson is the steadfastness of her desire to do right by her daughters, as well as the permanence of the lessons she instilled in them. "While Mama studied her Bible," Simpson writes, "I studied her, making scriptures from the ways she kept us afloat."

In addition to practical tips like "The money isn't due, due until the fifth of the month," the so-called Book of Sallie Carol contains gems that, one imagines, Simpson and her sister will continue to hold dear because of how far these words and their underlying beliefs took them despite the odds: "Book of Sallie Carol 1.1: Dream big. Beyond limitations, big…dreaming reshapes your reality."