A Childhood Struggle: Her Last Death

Bibliographic Details:

• Her Last Death: A Memoir
• Susanna Sonnenberg
• Date of Publication: 2008
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Inc.

Summary:

            The memoir opens in the Montana home of Susanna Sonnenberg and her family.  She has received the unfortunate news that her mother has been in a, possibly fatal, car accident.  As an adult, Sonnenberg continues to recount the memories of the destructive relationship with her mother, Daphne.  Experiences with drugs, sex at an early age, and both verbal and physical abuse from her young mother spin together in Sonnenberg’s recollection of her painful past.  While Daphne is attempting to maintain her youth, her oldest daughter is in desperate need for her only active parent’s adulthood. 

            In the novel, Her Last Death, Susanna Sonnenberg demonstrates that love is not always enough to build a stable companionship.  It is clear that Sonnenberg’s mother truly loved her, but she was not sure how to handle her significant role in motherhood.  Daphne survives the car accident, but Sonnenberg chooses to leave their relationship broken.  Sonneberg realizes that she, as a mother, can change the impression that her mother left her with.  Susanna Sonneberg allows herself to be fully dedicated to her family. 

Quotation:

            “I wanted to be icy, instead of scared.  Even as I tried to think what it would take to calm her down, I let a little dangerous rage seep out.  She wrenched my arm, which burned under her grip.  She jerked my chin.  Her breath was metallic and rank with the synthetic in the coke” (Sonnenberg 131).

Quotation Context:

            Susanna Sonneberg is vacationing with her mother in the Caribbean when they suddenly get into an argument about Daphne’s drug abuse, and random absences.  Daphne feels like she has given her entire world to her two daughters, so hearing Susanna’s view on everything is shocking.  As this is not the first confrontation that they have engaged in with each other, Sonnenberg tries something different.  Instead of remaining quiet and feeling her mother’s under the influence wrath, she takes a sassy approach.  Upsetting Daphne even more, Sonnenberg is kicked out of their hotel for the night. 

            The reader would immediately assume that Sonnenberg is being irrational for not going to see her own mother at her deathbed.  This quotation offers a reason as to why.  This was just one of various experiences of abuse that Susanna Sonneberg was pushed through with her mother.  It is obvious that Daphne unnecessarily caused Sonnenberg an unfairnand disoriented life; her own mother tore her apart.