“

The first time was when she screamed my name down the street, no other mother had a voice that loud that could stop traffic. And there’s a moment in the novel when the character based on my mother stops traffic with her voice … But I still remember when she was on stage. I ’m sure I was very young when I was first backstage in the theater, but I still remember it. And by the time I was 7 or 8, I was very much in awe that she was on television and that people would sometimes recognize her, although back then people just mainly stared at her like they did n’t know where they ’d seen her before.