SOURCE: "A Volcano in a Dresden Shepherdess," in The New York Times Book Review, May 12, 1996, p. 11.

In the following review, Sacks praises West's ability to write skillfully and convincingly about his adoration of his mother in My Mother's Music.

It takes guts for a grown man, in America today, to write adoringly about his mom. Love of mother, tainted by pop psychology, is one of our favorite movie and novel cliches, signaling male sexual confusion, blocked development or psychosis. In real life a man may honor the woman who nurtured and sacrificed for him. But speak or write earnestly about her and you risk sounding ridiculous.

That's a challenge too good for the eminent author and literary critic Paul West to pass up. "I'm afraid I belong to those who cannot resist a verbal opportunity, whatever the cost," he confides in [My Mother's Music, a] poignant memoir about...