Mothers and Other Strangers

A “mesmerizing and quietly revealing” novel about a woman’s quest to understand her glamorous, cruel, recently deceased mother (Publishers Weekly).
“My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with a dead man’s child, she accepted.”
Thus begins this spellbinding story of Elsie’s journey toward understanding her late mother, a narcissist who left her only child an inheritance of debts and mysteries. A dancer in Los Angeles, Elsie was estranged from her mother for years. But now she’s back in Toronto, trying to piece together the shards that remain of her mother’s life.
Meanwhile, she must cope with threats that come—or so she suspects—from The Seekers, the cult-like spiritual program to which her mother belonged. Undaunted, Elsie works to unravel the message her dying mother left for her, which ultimately takes her to the South African family homestead she never knew existed.
A Refinery29 Best Book of 2017.
“Shattering and brilliant, this marks the debut of an astonishing talent.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
“A fascinating look at a unique and fractured parent-child relationship . . . engaging and tense.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Sorell reveals herself as an author to watch . . . Ultimately, the sinister romance here, combined with an unflinching exploration of what can contribute to a mental breakdown, left me wanting to read whatever Sorell writes next.” —The Globe & Mail
“Riveting.” —Good Housekeeping
“A stunning debut, Mothers and Other Strangers grips from page one.” —Robin Black, author of Life Drawing
“A memorable first novel, a delightfully twisty gothic with the strange and eerie urgency of a fable or a dream.” —Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will and You Remind Me of Me
“This book is a must read for anyone who has struggled to understand their own parents.” —Robert Eversz, author of Shooting Elvis