Occasions of Sin evokes the complicated and all-consuming nature of Scofield's love for her mother. Scofield doesn't cut herself any slack; she admits that she didn't grasp the gravity of her mother's protracted illness until long after Edith's death. This uncompromising book does not move toward any tidy moments of acceptance; there is no sunset-cued epiphany in which Scofield realizes that everything will be all right. Instead, she devotes the book's final pages to exploring a personal tragedy she experienced while in college. Though owing a debt to Mary McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Occasions of Sin succeeds on its own unflinching terms. — Amy Kroin
Scofield's account of her childhood and teenage years will ring familiar with many readers. Although the book is framed by a specific time (the 1950s and '60s) and place (West Texas), its themes of wanting to be a perfect daughter, of trying to grasp the concepts of religion and God as a child, of fitting in among peers who seem far more mature are universal. Scofield's mother, Edith, lived a difficult life. A striking beauty, she had political ambitions yet was held back by a disapproving mother, two understandably needy young daughters and an often-absent husband. Edith, formerly Methodist, converted to Roman Catholicism when Scofield was a child, and brought Scofield and her sister up in the church. Much of Scofield's memoir concerns her years at Catholic boarding school, where she tried to find a balance between having an intimate relationship with God and fearing the iron-fisted nuns who monitored her every movement and prohibited contact with Scofield's adored and non-Catholic grandmother. Unlike many memoirists who write of growing up Catholic, novelist Scofield (Opal on Dry Ground; Plain Seeing; etc.) does not take a lighthearted look at her tumultuous childhood; rather, she marks her memories with an intense, reverent seriousness. When Scofield returned home at age 15 to live with Edith, the mother she'd idolized practically since birth, she was devastated to find her showing signs of grave illness, which turned out to be chronic nephritis, a kidney disease (she died a year later). Poignant and clearly cathartic, this is a tender, melancholic coming-of-age story. Agent, Emma Sweeney. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Novelist Scofield, who spent most of her upbringing in 1950s Texas, was the older of two girls. Her father worked hard but sporadically, requiring the family to move in with relatives when times got tough. Ill with kidney disease and depression, her mother, Edith, turned to the Catholic religion when introduced to God through a hospital chaplain. From then on, Edith made every effort to raise her girls in the church. She sent Sandra to boarding school, where the nuns encouraged her artistic and intellectual growth. There, Sandra embraced Catholicism until she reached puberty and returned home at age 15 to care for her dying mother. After her mother's death, her father remarried and moved, leaving her alone to make sense of her mother's bizarre life and manage on her own as a teenager. Now approaching 60, Scofield has written a literary memoir from the perspective of maturity and distance, accepting her mother's frailties as well as her own. The author of seven novels and a National Book Award finalist (Opal on Dry Ground), she is a skilled stylist. While this memoir doesn't break new ground, it does explore the mother/daughter relationship with insight and sensitivity. Recommended for large public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/03.]-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Growing up with a mother whose big dreams were thwarted by a teenage pregnancy, inadequate education, and ill health. Novelist Scofield (Opal on Dry Ground, 1994, etc.) also vividly evokes parochial and public school life in Texas during the 1950s. Her mother, who grew up poor and frail in West Texas, worked while she could on political campaigns, became a devout Catholic, and briefly took in a foster child. Her husband left her, had little to do with their children, and eventually remarried and disappeared altogether. From early childhood, Scofield was determined to achieve what her mother had been denied and to make all those sacrifices worthwhile. Young Sandra didn't always understand Mom's actions, like having herself photographed in the nude shortly before she died, but she was the most important figure in the life of her daughter, who treasured their times together talking, reading, and praying. Scofield recalls a childhood during which she was often the caregiver, making meals, taking charge of her younger sister, and nursing their mother. Sent away to Catholic boarding school, Sandra was homesick and lonely. In her junior year she came back to Odessa, Texas, to attend public school, where she found new challenges: boys, cliques, and a less nurturing atmosphere. Her greatest struggle, however, came in trying to keep her mother alive after a diagnosis of Bright's disease, which was not then treatable. Ignorant of what the diagnosis meant, Scofield was not prepared for her mother's long, painful illness at home and eventual death from kidney failure at age 33. Until the final, fatal day, Scofield was sure she could "rally the heavenly troops and keep her going." Now middle-aged, theauthor still grieves for a woman who made mistakes, but was easy to love. A tender but clear-eyed tribute. Agent: Emma Sweeney/Harold Ober Associates
