In this riveting, poignant memoir of three generations of women and the white dresses that adorned them—television producer Mary Pflum Peterson recounts a journey through loss and redemption, and her battle to rescue her mother, a former nun, from compulsive hoarding.
As a successful television journalist at Good Morning America, Mary Pflum is known as a polished and highly organized producer. … producer. It’s a persona at odds with her tortured childhood, where she watched her emotionally vulnerable mother fill their house with teetering piles of assorted “treasures.” But one thing has always united mother and daughter—their love of white dresses. From the dress worn by Mary’s mother when she became a nun and married Jesus, to the wedding gown she donned years later, to the special nightshirts she gifted Mary after the birth of her children, to graduation dresses and christening gowns, these white dresses embodied hope and new beginnings.
After her mother’s sudden death in 2010, Mary digs deep to understand the events that led to Anne’s unraveling. At twenty-one, Anne entered a convent, committed to a life of prayer and helping others. But lengthy periods of enforced fasting, isolation from her beloved students, and constant humiliation eventually drove her to flee the convent almost a decade later. Hoping to find new purpose as a wife and mother, Anne instead married an abusive, closeted gay man—their eventual divorce another sign of her failure.
Anne retreats into chaos. By the time Mary is ten, their house is cluttered with broken appliances and stacks of unopened mail. Anne promises but fails to clean up for Mary’s high school graduation party, where Mary is being honored as her school’s valedictorian, causing her perfectionist daughter’s fear and shame to grow in tandem with the heaps upon heaps of junk. In spite of everything, their bond endures. Through the white dresses, pivotal events in their lives are celebrated, even as Mary tries in vain to save Anne from herself.
Unflinchingly honest, insightful, and compelling, White Dresses is a beautiful, powerful story—and a reminder of the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.
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Enjoyed, the writers mother was about my age and it brought back memories of growing up.
Loved this book! The theme was wonderful and the white dress explanations filled in all the necessary information. A great deal of sadness that would haunt any family but they persevered through this and, I’m sure, that the present-day members are all the stronger for it.
I really prefer nonfiction and this book dealt into the lives of a daughter and her mother. It started with the mother as a little girl and went through her life and the White dresses that were significant in her life. It really held my interest. I would very much recommend it.
When someone in your life is severely dysfunctional you don’t stop having a meaningful relationship with them in some cases. This book is about a woman whose mother becomes a hoarder. Throughout her lifetime her daughter, the author, pulls back the curtain on this intensely personal issue. She shares how it began and progressed and how family members dealt with it. I loved this book. Helped me see into this strange world that some live in and their ability to survive.
So good that I’m giving two copies to my two daughters for Mothers’ Day.
I love that this is a true story and the love of a daughter for her mother.
Weak characters 3/5
I wasn’t sure at first, but I ended up loving this book. The author tells the story of her relationship with her mother, and her mother’s life, through the stories of the white dresses that Catholic girls and women wear throughout their lives. From christening gown to wedding gown and beyond. It’s a difficult story, as many mother-daughter relationships are, but never mean or hateful and you always feel the love underneath it all.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author is a great story teller.
Good editing could have told the same story with fewer words.
Kind of just never got off the ground for me. I kept reading but really wanted to just put it down and walk away.
Such a unique read and not at all what one might expect.
Loved the concept of life through the dresses.
No where near the top of good memoirs I have read, but okay.
Boring. Didn’t read beyond the first 50 pages.
HAVING SPENT 12 YEARS WITH CATHOLIC SISTERS, AND 4 YEARS IN BOARDING SCHOOL I UNDERSTOOD THE TALK AND THOUGHTS EXPRESSED. I’M NOT SURE HOW A NON CATHOLLIC WOULD REACT TO THIS BOOK.
Such a touching and heartbreaking memoir. So well written and moving
Made me take a good look at myself and that people who I know who are hoarders. Oprah is right. Everybody has a little area in their lives where they do this. I am making some changes. And, I am trying to have a more compassionate attitude toward those were serious hoarding issues.
deb
hoarder point of view interesting
amazing. very moving.