How to Forget

A Daughter's Memoir

By: Kate Mulgrew

Narrated by: Kate Mulgrew

Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

In this profoundly honest and examined memoir about returning to Iowa to care for her ailing parents, the star of Orange Is the New Black and best-selling author of Born with Teeth takes us on an unexpected journey of loss, betrayal, and the transcendent nature of a daughter’s love for her parents.

They say you can’t go home again. But when her father is diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer and her mother with atypical Alzheimer’s, New York-based actress Kate Mulgrew returns to her hometown in Iowa to spend time with her parents and care for them in the time they have left.

The months Kate spends with her parents in Dubuque - by turns turbulent, tragic, and joyful - lead her to reflect on each of their lives and how they shaped her own. Those ruminations are transformed when, in the wake of their deaths, Kate uncovers long-kept secrets that challenge her understanding of the unconventional Irish Catholic household in which she was raised.

Breathtaking and powerful, laced with the author’s irreverent wit, How to Forget is a considered portrait of a mother and a father, an emotionally powerful memoir that demonstrates how love fuses children and parents, and an honest examination of family, memory, and indelible loss.

©2019 Kate Mulgrew (P)2019 HarperAudio

A beautiful, touching story

I listen to a lot of books and am rarely moved to write a review. This book is truly touching and beautiful.

Extraordinary and Relatable!

This was an extraordinary Story!! So very relatable!! Thank you Kate for sharing your family with us!!

Incredible storytelling & narration

The vividness of Kate’s story, even such a poignant one as this, really drew me in as a listener. Death and grieving is not something any of us really want to talk about extensively or listen to to, for that matter. But Kate Mulgrew has a way of drawing you into this very sad subject and making you feel like you are with her through the last bits of her very precious parents lives. I grieved with her and can grieve my own losses through a new lens. Her storytelling is impeccable and her narration is beautiful.

Masterfully written and beautifully read

Kate Mulgrew brings her family to life again even while recounting her parents’ deaths. I feel as if I was invited into their family home over the years and given access to an intimacy that many family never know.
Wonderful.

A wonderful memory for a daughter to have

 The book was wonderful. It brought back memories of my lovely mother, and it was so well written and the narration inspiring and exceptional. 

Kate Mulgrew did it again!

Loved this book and the insights Kate shared about family, caregiving, and the love, humor, sadness, and more that comes along. She has an amazing voice to share - both as author and as narrator.

Heart-wrenching power, tender, bittersweet poetry.

Kate Mulgrew is a study in novel narratives. I would love giving Oscar or Emmy Award to this performance and Bestselling Predictions for the novel, itself. I felt like I was in this family, a sister or daughter!

Extraordinary book to be savored on many levels

Like her first book, this one captures you completely and you become part of her family, watching with awe and wonder as she takes you on a journey for which you know the ending, but you are inexorably pulled in to travel it with her, and you can't wait to share in the discovery of how she and her family cope. I have no personal ties to either Alzheimer's or lung cancer in my family, but there was much that reached out to me as a physician who has dealt with and studied both diseases.

One of many stories within this story is that of the unexpected heroine, Lucy, who unselfishly uproots herself from California to travel to Iowa to be caregiver to Kate's parents, as she was to Kate's children before. We learn some of her amazing life of suffering and migration to America that makes us want to know "the rest of the story" about this remarkable woman who has endured so much, and yet is capable of giving so much. This is especially poignant set against the current denigration of Hispanic immigrants by those in positions of power.

I can't imagine just simply reading this book, for Kate Mulgrew's narration brings such texture and depth to the words that it must be experienced audibly to fully appreciate this work. I highly recommend this audible book, and look forward to Kate telling us more about Lucy and her life with Tim in a third book. After all, we were left hanging at the end of "Teeth," wanting to know just what happens behind that door. Thank you Kate, for sharing.

Perfect 10

Kate Mulgrew's life is fascinating, to say the least. Her voice lends an extra dose of reality to this story and her descriptions of her father are so similar to my own father I think they must have been separated at birth.
All of us should hope we are treated with such dignity by our children at the end of our lives.

Insightful memoir!

I do not know what made me want to listen to Kate's story . I had the feeling it was too close to home. My siblings and I are working thru the same transition with my Mom! The diseases and situations are different than Kate and her family but in essence we are having the same experience. This is a comfort to me as my Mom transitions thru to the end of her life. I am experiencing the same feelings of uncertainty ,self doubt, and responsibility with all the joy and wonderful excitement when things are looking up. Kate's familiar voice is comforting as I have grown up with her. I even went to Seton Hill. Thanks Kate for sharing herself with honesty.