We know by page one of Queen for a Day that Mimi Slavittâs three-year-old son is autistic, but if we told her, she wouldnât listen, because she doesnât want to knowâuntil at last Dannyâs behavior becomes so strange even she canât ignore it. After her sonâs diagnosis Mimi finds herself in a world nearly as isolating as her sonâs. It is a world she shares only with mothers like herself, women chosen against their will for lives of sacrifice and martyrdom. Searching for miracles, begging for the help of heartless bureaucracies while arranging every minute of every day for children who can never be left alone, they exist in a state of perpetual crisis, normal life always just out of reach. In chapters told from Mimiâs point of view and theirs, we meet these women, each a conflicted, complex character totally unsuited for sainthood and dreaming of the day she can just walk away. Taking its title from the 1950s reality TV show in which the contestants, housewives living lives filled with pain and suffering, competed with each other for deluxe refrigerators and sets of stainless steel silverware, Queen for a Day portrays a group of imperfect women living under enormous pressure. Rosaler tells their story in ironic, precise and vivid prose, with dark humor and insight born of first-hand experience.
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