Mothers and Daughters: From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a captivating family drama

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Ultimately, these books all include moments—from borrowing a mother’s scarf for the cold walk to school or bringing safety pins to the funeral home so that her gray suit will fit after her illness—that show how some mothers and daughters get it right. When my mother died in 2018, my grief was compounded by how much I didn’t know about my mother, of my mother, and when I had a daughter in 2002, I knew I wanted my daughter to know me, the girl I had been, the young woman I missed, yet often regretted, and the woman I am, as me, as Jill, the woman beyond her mother. Here, the authors discuss the roles of mother and daughter, and how they have changed and continue to grow, and present the stories of women from all walks of life, and from different age groups, to illustrate what being a mother, and being a daughter, really means to women in their everyday lives.

Strout’s unflinching eye and staggering prose reveal the complex longings of these two vulnerable women.

Enhanced with an informed and informative introduction, [this book] offers thoughtful and thought-provoking discourses which are highly recommended for Literary Studies and Women’s Studies reference collections and reading lists. Chew-Bose, at twenty-eight in the essays, lives alone, walks to movies alone, thinks about writing, about a vacuum cord winding along a library floor, about advice her mother gives her in the car one day: “People don’t change,” and Chew-Bose spends pages speculating about their possible meaning. Jacobs here offers a brilliant reinterpretation of the Oresteia myth, and in doing so shows us how we can change our thinking.

Ms James has the knack of making her characters feel real – as I said I have read her books for years and still remember the names and personality of some of them. Erica James is most firmly on my favourite author list; I’ve read virtually all of her books over the years from the very first one and she never disappoints.

She believed in hard work, and the energy she poured into her job—hand-sewing shoes at a factory—seemed boundless . Easy-going drifter, Willow, has finally met a new boyfriend in Rick, whom her family seem to approve of, so why doesn’t she too feel convinced by his obvious overtures to settle down? I could not foresee how the story would progress and liked how the narrative shifted mostly between the three women. It’s a great time to delve into novels about the complex and fascinating relationship between mothers and daughters. Looking back at her childhood, a time after her parents’ separation, she understands how she was she was too young to notice that her mother bought a new shade of lipstick, Brick, which she still wears today or how angry and rude she was toward any man near her mother, but she remembers the cool touch of her mother’s palm on her forehead before bed, a mother whose love “has never been—not once—hesitant.

Through sharing the voices of diverse women across the lifespan, the authors succeed beautifully in exploring the variations and emotional intricacies of mother-daughter intimacy. Tillman and her two sisters spent 11 “maddening” years, as she characterizes them, caring for their more and more confused parent in her Manhattan apartment, managing a team of “doctors, companions, aides, physical therapists, and other professionals. When Bee’s beloved mother Bernadette disappears, the family will find themselves in a crisis that is at both turns hilarious and dramatic. Her father would approve of Rick, Willow’s not sure if she and Rick are really suited, she has a more laid back and casual approach to life.Generational stories are always a winner for me – I love the exploration of family dynamics, and the focus it puts on characters, especially when I can fully empathise with them. Ellis’s relationship with his mother gives the reader insight into his character, as does Rick’s recollection of his own unhappy childhood with his parents.