Mainlining: A Memoir

In this richly detailed, candid memoir, essayist Caroline Sutton’s portrays her upbringing on Philadelphia’s Main Line during the 1960s and ‘70s, as well as her immersion in WASP conventions and formalities. Seeking to unravel the enigma of her mother, Eloise Chadwick-Collins, the author takes us on a journey spanning decades. Sutton traces her mother’s roots to England, where the family lived in Downton-esque elegance before losing their money and emigrating to Bryn Mawr, where her charismatic grandmother supported the family by working at the college. Sutton describes her mother’s hasty marriage to her father, a WWII Navy officer who survived the sinking of the USS Wasp, and she explores the doubts that her mother hid from her daughter for many years.

We witness her attempts to escape a culture of private schools and dancing classes and to challenge her mother’s insistence on upholding appearances at all costs. Sutton finds herself caught between a controlling mother and a reserved father in a household where sentiments of love and resentment and more went unsaid. As she grows up, marries, and has children of her own, she struggles to understand how she could be both her mother’s closest confidante and an object of distrust. Ultimately, Sutton re-evaluates her roots, realizing that whether through opposition or acceptance, they indelibly shape us in spite of ourselves.