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In 'Apple, Tree,' Writers Touchingly Reflect On Their Parents With Humor And Love

In the new collection, Ann Patchett tells of her resemblance to her mother, Lizzie Skurnick and Mat Bergman offer thoughts on mothers with dementia, and John Freeman contemplates his father's legacy.
<em>Apple, Tree: Writers on Their Parents</em>, edited by Lise Funderberg

I have always looked like my mother. When I was a teenager, the resemblance was so extreme that once, two women — total strangers — stopped us on the sidewalk to demand that we write an essay about our lives as lookalikes.

"For Elle," they suggested. "Or Ladies' Home Journal." We laughed them off, but 15 years later, my mother still tells the story.

In the new collection , edited by Lise Funderberg, Ann Patchett tells a similar story. Her essay, "Sisters,"

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