Mother Puzzles: Daughters and Mothers in Contemporary American Literature

(Hardback)

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Despite extraordinary attention within the past five years by novelists, playwrights, and critics, the subject of mothers and daughters, and motherhood and daughterhood, has remained complicated and compelling. Mother Puzzles is a unique collection that examines how women who write have dealt with those relationships. Pearlman notes in her introduction that missing mothers--mothers who are physically present but emotionally absent--are often found in works by women. The question this collection addresses is why the mother, as currently portrayed in American literature by women, has moved from sainted marginality (as icon), to vicious caricature (as destroyer), to the puzzling figure that emerges here, and why these works are often also about incest and sexual abuse. Among the authors studied are Sue Miller, Tillie Olsen, Marilyn French, Gail Godwin, Mary Gordon, Marsha Norman, and Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. Feminist/literary/psychological analyses of Housekeeping, Lovingkindness, Fierce Attachments, Men and Angels, 'night Mother, The Snow Queen, and The Good Mother are included. These essays will interest scholars in American literature, readers of contemporary fiction, and those interested in Women's Studies.

Reviews

." . . . The 19 essays provide admirable breadth and balance, treating a versatile group of writers whose works explore intimate female connectedness. The collection addresses a variety of genres (including poetry, fantasy, and autobiography, as well as fiction) and examines stories of mothering from diverse subcultures and ethnic experiences. . . . [T]he significance and timeliness of the subject make this a book that most libraries, academic and public, will want to purchase."-Choice
. . . . The 19 essays provide admirable breadth and balance, treating a versatile group of writers whose works explore intimate female connectedness. The collection addresses a variety of genres (including poetry, fantasy, and autobiography, as well as fiction) and examines stories of mothering from diverse subcultures and ethnic experiences. . . . [T]he significance and timeliness of the subject make this a book that most libraries, academic and public, will want to purchase.-Choice
Nineteenth essays examine the complicated relationships between mother and daughters as created by American novelists, playwrights and critics. Sue Miller, Tillie Olsen, Marilyn French, and Marsha Gordon are some of the writers included in this collection, representing contemporary Americans struggling with images of mothers as icons and/or "destroyers."-Studies in the Humanities
"Nineteenth essays examine the complicated relationships between mother and daughters as created by American novelists, playwrights and critics. Sue Miller, Tillie Olsen, Marilyn French, and Marsha Gordon are some of the writers included in this collection, representing contemporary Americans struggling with images of mothers as icons and/or "destroyers.""-Studies in the Humanities

Author Bio

MICKEY PEARLMAN is an independent scholar, writer, and editor. She was editor of American Women Writing Fiction: Memory, Identity, Family, Space and the author of Reinventing Reality: Patterns and Characters in the Novels of Muriel Spark, Tillie Olsen and the coauthor of Inter/View: Talks with America's Writing Women. She writes often about Muriel Spark and is especially interested in the concepts of space and memory in the work of contemporary American women.