Mother of My Mother: The Intricate Bond Between Generations - Hardcover

Edelman, Hope

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385317964 ISBN 13: 9780385317962

Publisher: The Dial Press, 1999

Synopsis

In her bestselling Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman articulated the effects of early mother loss with stunning courage and honesty. In doing so, she helped hundreds of thousands of women heal. Now, in her new book--part memoir, part reportage--she brilliantly explores the three-generational triangle from which women develop their female identities: the grandmother-mother-granddaughter relationship. Edelman writes that her grandmother and her mother together "defined the terms 'mother,' daughter,' and 'woman' for me. The three of us, in my memory, are separate yet linked, like sequential pearls on a strand."

Drawing from her own experience and the recollections of more than seventy other granddaughters, Edelman constructs an eloquent, insightful narrative filled with stories of women who were each other's nurturers, confidantes, nemeses, and day-to-day supporters, among other roles. At the center of all these stories stands the maternal grandmother. In the pages of Mother of My Mother, readers will meet the "Gentle Giant," the matriarch who exercises behind-the-scenes power in her family; the "Autocrat," who rules her extended clan like a despot; and the "Kinkeeper," the grandmother who acts as the family's social, cultural, or religious center. Then, of course, there is Edelman's own maternal grandmother, the "Benevolent Manipulator," whose love for her family is rivaled only by her desire for control. Edelman's complicated, challenging, and dynamic relationship with her "colorful, opinionated, ubiquitous, stubborn, loving, patient . . ." grandmother is the consistent thread that runs throughout the book.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Praise for Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss:

"Absorbing . . . insightful . . . a moving and valuable treatment of a neglected subject."
--The New York Times

"A moving, comprehensive and insightful look at the lifelong ramifications of the loss of a mother."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"We are all inside one another, like the painted, wooden Russian Matrushka dolls my grandmother bought for me when I was six. I see this with startling clarity now as I watch my daughter Maya sitting at her toy piano. She bangs on the keys with her tiny hands and we tunnel together through time. She is a child and I am her mother, she is me and I am and I am my mother, she is my mother and I am my grandmother. This is our family album. My grandmother and my mother live on through my daughter as surely as they live on in me. Listen to her play. They are her inspiration. She is their song."
--Hope Edelman from Mother of My Mother

About the Author

Hope Edelman has been acclaimed both for her fresh insights into female family relationships and for her gifts as a writer. In Mother of My Mother she has created a universal testament to women everywhere who wish to understand and celebrate the women who came before them, and to illuminate the past for the daughters who follow.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Dial Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0385317964
• ISBN 13: 9780385317962
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288