Mother of My Mother; The Intricate Bond Between Generations

In her bestselling Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman articulated with stunning courage and honesty the effects of the early loss of a mother. 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 identifies: the grandmother-mother-granddaughter relationship.

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, confidants, nemeses, and day-to-day supporters, among other roles. At the center of all these stories stands the maternal grandmother. In Mother of My Mother, listeners 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.