The Jenny McKean Moore Reading Series Presents: Scott Simon: Unforgettable
The GWU English Department & The Jenny McKean Moore Reading Series invite you to a reading by Scott Simon.
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| NPR’s Scott Simon |
The event will be held:
Thursday, October 29th
7:30 PM
Gelman Library Room 702
Scott Simon is known as a broadcast journalist. He is, after all, the award-winning host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. He has also hosted and co-hosted BBC World News America and “Need to Know” on PBS. What’s not so widely known, however, is that Simon is also a fiction writer. His novels are Windy City and Pretty Birds, He’s also written books of nonfiction, about adoption, war, and the integration of baseball, among other things. His latest book is a memoir entitled Unforgettable: A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime. a tribute to his mother, Patricia Lyons Simon Newman.
Unforgettable utilizes a unique format, expanding on tweets Simon posted from his mother’s bedside during her final days to create a work that encapsulates“a son’s spirited, affecting, and inspiring tribute to his remarkable mother and the love between parent and child.” Simon’s work not only conveys the anguish of his mother’s death, but also pays tribute to her fascinating life.
Simon incorporates humor and sentiment in a moving reflection upon both his mother’s life, and their familial bond Simon recounts the experience of his abandonment by an alcoholic father, and the strength exhibited by his mother in the aftermath. “His mother was a glamorous woman of the Mad Men-era; she worked in nightclubs, modeled, dated mobsters and movie stars, and was a brave single parent to young Scott Simon.”
Hi twitter coverage began on July 16th, 2013:
After a series of tweets chronicling his mother’s decline, the last update was a beautiful tribute:
In an interview with NPR, Simon describes the experience of recounting his mother’s final days in the ICU:
“I think I can say now it was pretty wonderful. They were, along with having our children, and marrying my wife, the sweetest moments of my life to be able to share that with my mother, to be able to spend that time with her knowing, after a while, that this would be our last time together. To be able to tell each other how much we, not only loved each other, but how much the rest of my life will be in a sense a continuation of what she left inside of me.
It made me really understand … that mothers and fathers pour everything they are into us. And they stand us on our own. And they understand that we don’t fully grow up until some day we lose them. There are some lessons that only grief and responsibility can teach us. And to be able to go through that with my mother and have us both feel that inside our souls, really, that’s, that’s a blessing.” (NPR)
Praise for Unforgettable, Amazon “Best Book of the Month” and
Morning Joe “Book Club Pick”
“Deeply affecting… Mr. Simon’s cocktail of humor, honesty and compassion, is a powerful tonic…If not being quiet about death is becoming the new normal, Mr. Simon’s Unforgettable is one of its cornerstones.”
