The Summer My Mother's Eyes Turned Green | Book Review

Hard. Poetic. Wonderful. Three words for Tatiana Tîbuleac's *The Summer My Mother's Eyes Turned Green*, a novel in which Aleksy recalls the last summer he spent with his mother. The last, yes—but also the first, because for decades, after their beloved daughter and sister died, mother and son were enemies. She had festered in rage, clinging to the memory of the dead child and forgetting she was mother to a living son as well. Then, after years of hatred, that final summer changed everything. What followed for Aleksy were darker times: more violence, hospitalizations, psychiatric wards, art therapy sessions, success as a painter. Eventually a doctor advises him to revisit that summer with his mother, hoping to break through the creative block he's trapped in. And so begins the story of how decades of hatred became three months in which resentment and helplessness were transformed into love and dialogue.