Laura Flynn

"My father had vastly underestimated how predisposed the courts were to keeping children with their mothers in 1977," Laura Flynn states in her richly detailed memoir, Swallow the Ocean, a true tale of three daughters growing up with a mentally ill single mother in San Francisco. Though the neglect suffered at the hands of a once kind and intellectually adventurous mother, and the drawn-out custody battle that ensued is unsettling, Flynn, who recounts events through the perspective of her young self, fleshes out a more complex story. For every volatile outburst and paranoid delusion, there is a memory of sisters giggling over chewing contests at the dinner table, of playing board games or drinking 7-Up at a pool party with their father, and of walks in the park with their mother. School fire drills, water balloon fights, and family vacations are as important as broken glass, deteriorating households, and temper tantrums. These details complete the dynamics of the family, as does the guilt the daughters feel, wanting help but not wanting to abandon their mother, and the realization that their mother isn't simply mentally ill (the term "paranoid schizophrenic" isn't even used until about three-fourths of the way through). Though eventually knowing the medical terminology is a release for the daughters, their mother and their family are more than a clinical diagnosis.
Thu., Feb. 28, 7 p.m., 2008