This was a very interesting story. Wendy Doe is found a Peter Pan bus with no recollection of who she is or where she came from. There was a science side to this that I didn’t enjoy, but it was interesting.

'This body is not a temple, but it has been loved. You’d think someone would be looking for it.'

In Mother Daughter Widow Wife, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Epstein leaves her studies on rats behind after a bit of screw-up and hatches a plan to work beneath “cognitive psychology’s latest golden god” in order to ‘relaunch her research’ under the reputation, resource and genius of Benjamin Strauss of Medowlark Institute. Of the four fellowship winners, only one will win the right to publish with Strauss. Lizzie’s ambitions have found the perfect home in Benjamin, the sure thing to guide her intellectual life, even if getting there puts an end her current relationship. It isn’t long before she meets the ‘legend’ Strauss and is introduced to the subject that will take her into the labyrinth of the brain. Wendy Doe, by all appearances, is about the same age as Lizzie but unlike her doesn’t have a past to wrestle with.

Wendy Doe, a woman found on a Peter Pan bus with “no means of identification, including her own useless brain” is going to change Lizzie’s life despite having been spat out from her own. Diagnosed with dissociative fugue state, she is no longer just a patient reliant on the state but Lizzie and Benjamin’s subject matter. A woman wiped clean of any evidence of a past, ripe for Benjamin’s study into neurons, memory and brain dysfunction who Lizzie sees as a risk. Unlike rats that can be controlled, at any moment her family could find her or her memory could replace the ‘newborn woman’ who has taken over the body and ruin their research. This subject has the ability to ask questions of the researchers and worse, it could be a superb act, a lie. This study could end up being a waste of precious time and yet, Wendy could be key in launching Lizzie’s career, especially with Dr. Strauss’s name attached. Wendy doesn’t seem to want to remember if it means total annihilation of her current self. How could Lizzie possibly understand what it means to forget, to be without a well of memories to draw upon in order to define yourself? For Lizzie, whose self is ever present, her memories are perfectly waiting in her brain, even within her body and always waiting to be entertained. Wendy is akin to a living ghost and in some ways maybe all women are, dependent on the choices they make in life. Lizzie herself will wear different forms of being by the novel’s end, her life taking strange diversions, striving towards more than her career pursuits (for better or worse). The death of other selves could well be the theme. Embracing her ambition and casting it off, desire, love and passion for more than science.

Memories are imprints that sear the brain, creating a map of who we were so we can understand who we are as well as the person we are becoming. Our likes, dislikes, passions, friendships, loves, victories, failures, traumas and recoveries- all of these are building blocks. It’s terrifying to question what a core of a person is made of, how flimsy it truly is. How reliable, fruitful is this garden in the brain that we tend to when so much of what we encounter is forgotten or falsely remembered? How much meaning can we place upon our shared moments in time? This question is a torment for Wendy’s daughter, Alice. Her mother disappeared and in order to solve the mystery of her mother’s vanishing, she has to go backwards into Wendy’s murky past. Who was the mother she thought she knew?

Wendy resents being a test subject, but it’s her last resort. She is not just a body, though she is treated like one confronted with a stream of endless tests and questions. She is research and a conundrum Dr. Benjamin Strauss is desperate to solve but he was the first to make her feel like a human being. Do we need other people to see us in order to become real? She trusts him to explore the mysteries of her mind, but should she? Why would she want to let the woman who slipped out of her mind to come back? Where is the reason in thinking about that unwanted landlord who left a wobbly stranger in her place, who handed her this body with no crumbs to follow?

Unlike her rats, Wendy’s existence brings to the surface more questions than answers for Lizzie. The more she gets to know Wendy, who is slowly becoming a fresh person solely of the present, the more she questions inconsistencies of the self. In observing Wendy she is poking and prodding her own psyche. There is a certain freedom she witnesses, to be a woman who doesn’t need permission to think, to love, nor how to live. Does such freedom require being erased, free of the expectations of others? There too is Strauss, with his own plot of memories, a full life that she gets to excavate.How much meat is in concrete facts, more or less than resides in a ravaged mind? Everyone is elusive in their own way, even to themselves. She longs for him to be intrigued by her and through their study of Wendy, this mutual intellectual pursuit, a fever is rising between them. Strauss, through this study, may have just handed her the key into her life’s work. Like a pet, she beams under his praise. How can she possibly resist this remarkable man and not be impressed by his genius? What does such submission to a man’s preeminence cost?

What is forgetting? Why has Wendy’s mind completely erased her, if she is to be believed? Is erasure damnation or salvation? Is it better to cling to this life “without footholds” or to be free of everything that kept you tethered? Alice should be an anchor, she is the face on their other side of the cliff Wendy has plummeted from. Did she know her mother at all, and if the mother she knew, the facts of her were just a wisp of cloud what can she understand about her own memories, facts? Can Alice fill enough gaps to conjure her mother and unravel her many disappearances? Are omissions just another name for lies? Does Wendy have a center at all? Alice will seek answers through Lizzie, but may get lost in a more complex maze.

I know reviews will be mixed, but what drew me in is the stark terror of memory, that greasy, sometimes mean little weasel that more often than not betrays us, leads us astray or abandons us altogether. What do we owe it, more- what does it owe us? Lizzie and Wendy are both Benjamin’s subjects, in a sense, as the lines blur. It could be said Wendy studies them too- that’s the problem with a thinking, feeling subject, not just whether or not they are forthright but that you run the risk of influencing them, or they you. What do we project unto others? There is a lot happening here, and the presence of all the women in Benjamin’s life dominate the story. What about Benjamin and how he files his life experiences? It is most important how the women, dependent on their place in Strauss’s life, identify with each other but it is also about who present ourselves to be and the identity people allow us to embrace.

I really liked this story, even if it frustrates other readers, the novel had my mind going in strange places.

Publication Date: July 7, 2020

Scribner

4 stars. This book was very well written, but it was really slow paced and in the beginning I almost gave up. I do think the author really took the time to study the subject, as someone who has lived through it can see. The characters development and needing to know more about them, is what really kept me reading this story, because the development was so amazing. It’s not one that’s going to grab you from the beginning and make you flip pages like a mad woman/man, but is something that is compelling and intriguing and will leave you pondering for quite some time once you finish. If you like slower paced, character driven reads, this is your book!
Will make sure to buzz it up on all the different platforms!

When I read Girls on Fire a couple of years ago, I felt like I was on fire. There was something so genuine and haunting and almost inappropriate about that book. I instantly became a fan of Wasserman. MDWW is quite different, or so I found. It didn't hook me immediately, and some of the time, I felt like the story was flat, and I couldn't remember which character I was reading about. All of that is really unfortunate, because I feel like the book has such potential, and it just didn't meet my expectations. That's okay, because as I said, Wasserman has a fan here, and I look forward to future writings.

Mother Daughter Widow Wife publishes 7.7.2020

3/5 Stars

this is a smart book, a subtle book, i tend to read very quickly but i couldn't do that with this book without doing it a disservice. well it resolved mostly very well. it still left us with a mystery of one of the central characters, who did she become, where was she and why, i guess leaving us as readers to draw our own conclusions. a worthy read

"Dissociative fugue" is what Wendy Doe has been assigned a diagnosis. To Dr. Strauss - Wendy is nothing but a female body that he can control. To Dr. Strauss' student, Lizzie, Wendy is an object of fascination, a complete mirror of Lizzie's own ambitions and desires, and an enigma to be studied. Through all of their attempts to untangle the complexity of Wendy's identity Robin Wasserman has outdone themselves by producing a reclamation of voice, discovery, and the desire to belong.

I thoroughly enjoyed "Mother Daughter Widow Wife" by Robin Wasserman. It was a great cocktail of drama, internal dialogue, and sleuthing that I already admire in a good book. 4.5/5!

This book is wild and I leave it at that. Certain aspects of it kept me engaged while others had me scratching my head. Certain parts made no sense. But that could just be a language barrier.

Is this smoke coming out of my frying brain cells? Sure, it is! I need an urgent transplant because my brain is not functioning properly. It worked too much to understand this book and I hear the alarm bells and whooshing sound in my ears!

Yes, it was too much to handle! This book terribly exhausted me and at some parts I failed to understand what the author meant. Maybe I’m not smart enough or I’m not in the great mood to focus but I’m lost!

There are so many parts are greatly written and I truly enjoyed but at some parts I lost my interest and I wanted to stop and put it on my “dnf” shelf. This is different kind of Switzerland book because normally when I give a book three stars: I don’t enjoy them much but I also don’t hate them. This time: I enjoyed some parts of the book: mother-daughter relationship, mystery about the women suffering from amnesia, moving back and forth to learn Wendy and Alice’s connection but I also hated vague, slow burn, flat pacing and big plot holes ( I didn’t get the answers I needed! I was not intelligent enough to read the secret messages of the lines!)

We’re introduced Lizzie, a scientist, starts to work Neuroscience facility, hired by Dr. Benjamin Strauss. She finds a big opportunity to work on a rare case: Wendy Doe, suffering from amnesia, fugue state, brought out the facility.

And decades later, Lizzie meets with Alice at her doorstep. Alice’s mother is presumed dead but Alice believes that she is alive. When she was younger, her mother disappeared for months in fugue state and then she returned back. So she thinks it could happen again and she needs Lizzie’s help.

This book is about losing yourself and giving up your life, your identity and how to get them back, how to rediscover yourself. As far as I get from the long, windy chapters and the small clues I gathered from going back and forth to the stories of three women, the reason they gave up so much and lost themselves connected to the men.

This is dark, complex, compelling feminism and re-discovery story: like a phoenix’s rising from the ashes.

When I read some parts I felt like I found a unique gem but pacing, moving in the dark and plot holes, unanswered questions, bizarre dialogues failed me. At some parts I asked myself: WTH I’m reading? What does it mean?

It’s more than thought provoking and mostly mind-numbing, brain cell eliminating, exhausting train ride for me!
I’m giving my 3 stars as I mentioned at the beginning. I still adore author’s talent and motivation. It’s still great reading but I think I need at least 12 hours sleep because this book made me feel like I ran 15K marathon. And I felt like I just rent inside my head to a noisy construction company building a shopping mall complex. My head aches so much!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for sharing this ARC in exchange my honest review.

This book was mesmerizing and beautifully written. This is an exploration of love and identity. This book will capture you and tug at your heartstrings, making you not want to let go of this book.

This book was a bit of a slog. Not a bad story by any means but as it switched from character to character, it was hard to follow... to feel like I was staying in the correct lane. The story switched from present to past in a dizzy back and forth... again, I felt like I was always trying to catch up to either hurry up and be in the present or shuttle back to the past.

The novel is told by three different women. Wendy Doe has lost her memory. She has no idea who she is and ends up at the Meadowlark institute where she and her fugue state are being studied by the great Benjamin Strauss, scientist extraordinaire. Lizzy, another voice in the story, ends up at the Meadowlark to do a fellowship and is put on the case of Wendy Doe. Alice is the daughter of Karen Clark... who is also Wendy Doe. Her Mother has disappeared and Alice is looking for answers in an attempt to find her Mom. She comes to Meadowlark for those answers, 18 years after Lizzy worked with Wendy at the institute. These women are all linked and the story sheds light on the ways they are connected and the story slowly reveals secrets that they didn’t know. With the secrets be things to bind them together or things to tear them apart? You’ll have to read the novel to find out.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Mother Daughter Widow Wife.

I was excited when my request was approved but I was expecting a story with more of a mystery angle, like the daughter was actively searching for her mother like Nancy Drew.

Mother Daughter Widow Wife is an in-depth look at three women, a medical researcher named Lizzie, a patient named Wendy Doe, and Wendy's daughter, Alice.

These women represent the roles society lumps us in; mother, daughter, widow, wife; and the women demonstrate how they to these roles, rebel or submit, and how these assumptions may justify or inform the (poor) decisions we make.

There are a lot of themes in the book, such as memory, how faulty it is, how identity is shaped by our family and what we remember or choose to forget, and the connections we make or struggle to make or want to forget.

The time jump was a little distracting, and the numerous POVs was also hard to keep up with. I had to stop reading a few times, go read something else and come back to this.

I also found it difficult to connect to any character; Lizzie, Wendy or Alice, and this disconnect from any of the characters made me less emotionally involved in the story.

I also found it a bit cliche that these women are all connected to one man. Naturally, a man takes center stage in their lives in some way.

The writing is good, but there's a lot of exposition, description, and not much dialogue.

Mother Daughter Widow Wife was good, just not what I was looking for.

With a new job as a researcher at the Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research, Lizzie finds herself returning to her hometown after a breakup, not sure if she's starting her next chapter, or taking a step backwards to the family and friends she had already left behind.

One good thing, maybe - maybe not, is that she gets to spend more time with her best friend Gwen who now has a husband and baby. As much as she loves Gwen, Lizzie does not love the judgment Gwen offers against some of the decisions Lizzie makes.

Lizzie views her fellowship at the Meadowlark is a competition. He's vying for the best research project and the most favorable attention from the renowned leader, Dr. Benjamin Strauss. When Strauss offers Lizzie a prime case, Lizzie must decide if she wants to stray from her research on rats and work with a woman who claims to have no memory of who she is and where she came from. Strauss is calling her Wendy Doe.

Lizzie decides in order to garner favor with Strauss, she must take on Wendy Doe's case. This also allows Lizzie to spend the majority of her time at the Institute with Strauss. Wendy, Lizzie, and Strauss all grow closer, yet Wendy struggles to gain any sense of who she is.

Jump ahead 20 years, and Strauss has recently died, leaving Lizzie his widow. And, surprisingly, just as Lizzie is dealing with her grief, Wendy Doe shows back up to throw Lizzie for one last big loop.

The twist towards the end of the book isn't one that I saw coming. The story is steady, detailing the love story of Strauss and Lizzie. It's not an easy love story; it's filled with heartache. Lizzie is left questioning her life choices and her closest relationships. But the fact that it's not a fairly tale makes it more intriguing and compelling.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

You might think you know how a book about a woman who has amnesia is going to go, but this story is so complex and intricate. Told through several female points of view, this book gives a fascinating look into memory and how it shapes our lives, how our memories change over time and what it might mean if we couldn't remember our past. How would it change who we are if we no longer could remember who we were - fascinating!

While this books was heart-wrenching at times as these women search for answers with no easy resolution, I loved it!

So well written so involving a book that grabbed me from the first pages..Characters that took me on a wild ride that came alive,#netgalley#scribnerbooks

I don’t think I fully understand this book...
I knew that a woman had disappeared....’presumably’ committed suicide...
I understood that Lizzie - a scientist- was hired by the Senior scientist, Dr. Benjamin Strauss - to to examine, scrutinize, and analyze a woman who was found on a bus with amnesia, in a fugue state. They named the woman ‘Wendy Doe’.

Alice was Wendy’s daughter. ( but we learn this about twenty years later).. Alice wants to learn as much as she can about her mother and needed Lizzie/ Elizabeth’s help.

Between past and present storytelling .....Wendy, Lizzie/Elizabeth,
Alice - each narrating, divided into XIV sections....I felt a combination of confusion, boredom, with occasional real interest.
I felt held hostage to keep reading.....[ note, clearly I’m responsible and could have stopped reading - instead I took twice as many notes - thinking I’d find answers if I kept at it].

I wasn’t able to fully comprehend the depths of inquiry this book was asking of us about memory and identity - women’s bodies and who they belong to. I felt like a flunkee. .....which made me feel kinda crappy about myself.

I thought if I read more - I’d feel better.....by understanding more.
Unfortunately- I didn’t feel tons better.
BUT....there WERE ‘PARTS’ I ENJOYED....
I felt most connected to Lizzie Epstein - the scientist...
But mostly I felt trapped in the same way Wendy Doe did when she had no memory.....or didn’t understood what was happening to her.

I know that mothers and daughters together are a powerful force to reckon with.... but I struggled with the most basic themes of the complexities of their separation..

Reading this book was a little maddening — not sure what went wrong. I’m struggling now trying to explain it.
My own husband ‘liked’ watching me squirm! WHAT? I honestly needed help......
Paul laughed at me - He said “struggling is good for you”. I hated him! Lol.

A simple sentence could knock me off my comfort mountain:
“Her mother’s life was not defined by its end, anymore than Alice’s life is defined by its beginning”.
WHAT DOES THAT ‘REALLY’ mean? I danced that sentence around in my head a half dozen times - trying to imagine - the mother - and Alice - at different stages of their lives. Yep....felt lost!
My brain hurt! Still hurts!

DO NOT PASS GO....GO DIRECTLY TO OTHER REVIEWS!!! They’re more enthralling!
Please don’t let my limitations - lack of understanding the contextual purpose - influence others from reading this book.
Other readers loved it!!!

I Sincerely want to thank Scriber Publishing, Netgalley, and Robin Wasserman.

With an absolutely gripping start, Wasserman explores the uncertainty of memory and how our identity is both independent from and hinges upon it. Easily binge-able on a night in – get ready to curl up and be taken upon a whirlwind that will leave you wondering.

Review to be published on Goodreads 6/16/20

There's so much I could say about this book. Wasserman's Mother Daughter Widow Wife is a masterful, lyrical meditation on memory, bodies, identity -- of the ways we interact with our past and future selves, how we spend a lifetime in a body that is only brought truly alive by memory.

Elizabeth, a bright graduate student, accepts an exceptional opportunity to study alongside a famous scientist whose life quickly consumes hers. Together, they study Wendy Doe, a woman who is trapped in a fugue state, remembering nothing of her former life. 

Years later, Alice has just graduated high school when she discovers her mother is missing and presumed dead. Except, Alice's dad shares, this has happened before -- when Alice's mother went by Wendy Doe until her memory returned to her. Alice seeks out Elizabeth to learn more about the time in her mother's life when she ceased being the woman who was her mother.

I loved this book. It was one of those books I kept underlining passages of, over and over, wanting to revisit. As I look back on each passage I wanted to keep close to my heart, they are all about ways of forgetting and remembering the story of what has happened to you -- how your memory shapes who you are, and how who you are is a dynamic creature that won't--can't--stop moving.

Fans of Nicole Krauss and Janet Finch will find a lot to love here. And after finishing this novel, I immediately borrowed Wasserman's previous book, "Girls On Fire" from the library -- can't want to see what else she releases!

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital advanced copy in exchange for a thoughtful review.

What if you woke up one day and didn't remember anything about your life. Well that's where this book takes us. It was a wild ride and I couldn't put it down!