Memory Palace by Mira Bartok ***

This book is the memoir of the author's childhood and adulthood living with a mother who was a psychotic schizophrenic. Her father, who disappeared very early in Myra's life, was an alcoholic, the the mother, an aspiring concert pianist whose life spiralled downwards until her two daughters had to change their names and addresses, move away to an unknown location, and only communicate with their mother by letters delivered to a postal box for 17 years. 

Mira's story of her growing- up years is sad and chaotic, living with grand-parents who hated one another, their mother in and out of psychiatric hospitals after particularly violent episodes, the two girls never knowing which mother they 'd encounter at any given moment- the warm, loving one or the Medusa -like monster who attacked with knives and fire.

The author herself later suffers a brain injury which deeply affects her own artistic life, but the two girls and their mother finally re-unite just before their mother dies, after living in one homeless shelter after another.

Very well- written, no holds barred.