NO SON OF MINE by Jonathan Corcoran

About the Book:

Born and raised in rural West Virginia, Jonathan Corcoran was the youngest and only son of three siblings in a family balanced on the precipice of poverty. His mother, a traditional, evangelical, and insular woman who had survived abuse and abandonment, was often his only ally. Together they navigated a strained homelife dominated by his distant, gambling-addicted father and shared a seemingly unbreakable bond.
When Corcoran left home to attend Brown University, a chasm between his upbringing and his reality began to open. As his horizons and experiences expanded, he formed new bonds beyond bloodlines, and met the upper-middle-class Jewish man who would become his husband. But this authentic life would not be easy, and Corcoran was forever changed when his mother disowned him after discovering his truth. In the ensuing fifteen years, the two would come together only to violently spring apart. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged in 2020, the cycle finally ended when he received the news that his mother had died.

In No Son of Mine, Corcoran traces his messy estrangement from his mother through lost geographies: the trees, mountains, and streams that were once his birthright, as well as the lost relationships with friends and family and the sense of home that were stripped away when she said he was no longer her son. A biography nestled inside a memoir, No Son of Mine is Corcoran's story of alienation and his attempts to understand his mother's choice to cut him out of her life. Through grief, anger, questioning, and growth, Corcoran explores the entwined yet separate histories and identities of his mother and himself.

About the Author:

Jonathan Corcoran is the author of the memoir (April 2024, University Press of Kentucky), and the story collection, (2016, WVU Press), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and long-listed for The Story Prize. His essays and stories have been published and anthologized widely, including in Salvation South, Still: The Journal, Best Gay Stories, and the Oxford University Press textbook, How Writing Works. He received a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Rutgers University-Newark. Jonathan teaches writing at New York University and in the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. He was born and raised in a small town in West Virginia and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more at jonathancorcoranwrites.com.

About the Moderator:

Jayne Anne Philips is the author of six novels, including Night Watch, Quiet Dell, Lark And Termite, MotherKind, Shelter, and Machine Dreams, and two widely anthologized story collections, Fast Lanes, and Black Tickets. Night Watch was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Longlisted for the National Book Award; Quiet Dell was a Wall Street Journal and Kirkus Review Best Fiction selection. Lark And Termite, winner of the Heartland Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Prix de Medici Etranger. Machine Dreams, chosen as one of (12) New York Times’ Best Books of the year, was a finalist for National Book Critic’s Circle Award. Black Tickets, awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy, is often cited as a book of stories that influenced a generation of writers. The recipient of Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, Howard, Bunting, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, Phillips is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters. See information, essays and text source photographs at her website, www.jayneannephillips.com.

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