Mother's Madness

Was it her ego, was it the alcohol, or was she truly evil?

Her mother's name graces the front of a children's learning center in New York City, but behind the façade of a caring educator was a woman whose life could best be described as diabolical. While her daughter Janis knew first-hand that her mother, Leontine L. Pryor, had a mean streak, it wasn't until she received a call from a New York City detective that she realized how sinister she really was.

"I don't think I've ever read anything quite like what you have written. It's as gripping as a good novel and revelatory in ways that encompass history, sociology, and psychology. It feels like a great gift to all daughters of mad moms, but especially Black ones. I'm reminded of something Alice Walker wrote somewhere about Carl Jung saying that Black women were not good subjects for psychoanalysis because they were unwilling to criticize their mothers. What you've done, I think, is show that we have to criticize them in order to understand both them and ourselves, as well as the really effed-up racist, sexist, cutthroat materialist world that continues to spawn so much misery." - Judith Wilson-Pates, former editor at MS Magazine

"Mother's Madness is a moving account of the bonds forged between generations in a family that Janis Pryor tells with grace and style. She holds back no punches as she describes the determination and ferocity necessary to feel the love and the pain that accompanies such a journey of human connection. Told through the observant eyes of a daughter, this book is a beautiful testament to what it means to truly be family." - Peter Faust, The Constellation Approach, Finding Peace Through Your Family Lineage

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