An affirming and inspiring tribute to the complexities of mother-daughter relationships—featuring interviews with Alice Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, and more No matter what a woman achieves in her life—no matter how old she gets or whether she herself becomes a mother—she is always and forever a daughter. In this series of interviews, over twenty well-known women reflect on their complicated relationships with their mothers, from wonderful moments of friendship and reconciliation to difficult times marked by addiction, sickness, and death. The result is at once an affirming self-help book, an uplifting tribute to mother-daughter relationships, and a collective memoir that captures the female experience in all its forms. Featuring: Patti Davis, Anne Rice, Carolyn See, Marg Helgenberger, Melissa Gilbert, Carnie Wilson, Rosanna Arquette, Mariel Hemingway, Anna Quindlen, Angelica Huston, Mary Kay Place, Ruby Dee, Faye Wattleton, Julianne Margulies, Lily Tomlin, Diahann Carroll, Candice Bergen, Marianne Williamson, Sherry Lansing, Whoopie Goldberg, Lorna Luft, Cokie Roberts, Alice Hoffman, Kathy Smith, and Linda Bloodworth Thomason.

Talk to women under forty today, and you will hear that in spite of the fact that they have achieved goals previous generations of women could only dream of, they nonetheless feel more confused and insecure than ever. What has gone wrong? What can be done to set it right? These are the questions Danielle Crittenden answers in What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us. She examines the foremost issues in women's lives -- sex, marriage, motherhood, work, aging, and politics -- and argues that a generation of women has been misled: taught to blame men and pursue independence at all costs. Happiness is obtainable, Crittenden says, but only if women will free their minds from outdated feminist attitudes. By drawing on her own experience and a decade of research and analysis of modern female life, Crittenden passionately and engagingly tackles the myths that keep women from realizing the happiness they deserve. And she introduces a new way of thinking about society's problems that may, at long last, help women achieve the lives they desire.

“You will devour these beautifully written—and very important—tales of honesty, pain, and resilience” (Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and City of Girls) from fifteen brilliant writers who explore how what we don’t talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse. As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything. As Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” There’s relief in acknowledging how what we couldn’t say for so long is a way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves. Contributions by Cathi Hanauer, Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Dylan Landis, Bernice L. McFadden, Julianna Baggott, Lynn Steger Strong, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, André Aciman, Sari Botton, Nayomi Munaweera, Brandon Taylor, and Leslie Jamison.

When Emma Brockes was ten years old, her mother said 'One day I will tell you the story of my life and you will be amazed.' Growing up in a tranquil English village, Emma knew very little of her mother's life before her. She knew Paula had grown up in South Africa and had seven siblings. She had been told stories about deadly snakes and hailstones the size of golf balls. There was mention, once, of a trial. But most of the past was a mystery. When her mother dies of cancer, Emma - by then a successful journalist at the Guardian - is free to investigate the untold story. Her search begins in the Colindale library but then takes her to South Africa, to the extended family she has never met and their accounts of a childhood so different to her own.She encounters versions of the life her mother chose to leave behind - and realises what a gift her mother gave her. Part investigation, part travelogue, part elegy, She Left Me the Gun is a gripping, funny and clear-eyed account of a writer's search for her mother's story.

The name Whoopi Goldberg conjures images of laughter, sex, surprise, versatility, African heritage and Jewish identity, to name a few. How did she become such a major player in Hollywood and the larger world? This book provides an overview of some of Goldberg's most important efforts on Broadway and in motion pictures and television and the world of social activism. Major features include comparative analyses of Goldberg's work in relation to that of such notable performers as Bert Williams, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Dave Chappelle, as well as in-depth analyses of her work as the fictional Celie in the major motion picture The Color Purple; her Oscar-winning role as the fictional Oda Mae Brown in Ghost and her cultural impact as an American woman working.

Compiled by the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, this collection features prominent women discussing the complex, humorous, and ultimately loving relationships they have with their mothers. Contributors include Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, and Lorna Luft.

How Do You Forgive a Parent Who Has Failed You? One summer, Melissa Cistaro’s mother stepped into her baby-blue Dodge Dart and drove away, leaving behind Melissa and her brothers. Rarely seeing their mother as they were growing up, they blamed themselves for her leaving, turning to each other for support and seeking out often destructive ways to cope with living without their mom. Decades later, with children of her own, Melissa finds herself in Olympia, Washington, as her mother is dying. She has just days to find out what happened that summer and to confront the unthinkable fear that a “leaving gene” might be lying dormant inside of her. She knew she came from a long line of mothers who left their children. But when Melissa stumbles across a folder titled “Letters Never Sent” tucked away in her mother’s filing cabinet, she begins to feel the wreckage of her mother’s painful journey, before and after she abandoned her family. Alternating between Melissa’s tumultuous coming-of-age and her mother’s final days, Without My Mother is a haunting yet ultimately uplifting story of one woman’s quest to discover how our parents’ choices impact our own and how we can survive those choices to forge our own paths.