When Scott Simon began tweeting pain, love and conversation from his motherâ??s deathbed in an intensive-care unit in July 2013, he turned personal grief into collective emotion. Sharing painful moments and insights â?? â??I just realized: she once had to let me go into the big wide world. Now I have to let her go the same wayâ? â?? Simon broke ground in the uses of social media. He was alone with his mother for most of those days at the hospital. Yet millions sat vigil with him, sobbing and laughing at the life and wisdom of 84-year-old Patricia Lyons Simon Newman.
Now, with â??Unforgettable,â? Simon reveals not the possibilities of social media but its limits. However intimate those 140-character bursts, they seem inadequate compared with the skilled unspooling of this memoir about growing up alongside his mother in their beloved Chicago and of caring for her in the final breaths.
Read Full Article »