A Mother Runs Through It, posing as a collection of humorous domestic essays, makes us smile with recognition, sometimes laugh out loud, at the travails of one person's ordinary life -- filled as it is with the usual frustrations, heartbreaks, and the extraordinary tragedies that happen to each of us. As we read Carolyn Walker's closely observed and tidily constructed prose pieces, we see our own lives and know the extent to which we can transcend our own sorrows to find grace. By book's end we realize we have read a long and thankful prayer. Gay Rubin, author of On A Good Day A Mother Runs Through It is a quilt of stories that warms the heart. With poignant memory, humor and optimism, Carolyn Walker reminds us that despite the challenges of our lives and deaths, it is how we choose to feel that gives us cause to continue to mother. Patricia Alice Albrecht, fiction writer and poet, Wind-Eyes: A Women's Reader and Writing Source The pieces are written from the perspective of a mother, a daughter, granddaughter, wife and friend of other mothers. Walker addresses with facility a wide range of subjects: aging, religion, family, divorce, disability, death, Shakespeare and love. Disarming in their brevity and apparent simplicity, the entries include both knee-slapping humor and lump-in-the-throat revelations in a tone that is consistently unassuming and compassionate. Both homey and haunting, Walker presents life lessons without excessive pontifiation or mawkish semtimentality. Leif A. Gruenbereg, publisher and editor of Woodward Magazine.