What My Mother Gave Me

Thirty-one Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most

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Pub Date 02 Apr 2013 | Archive Date 02 May 2013

Description

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter’s story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served as a model, a metaphor, or a touchstone in her own life. The contributors of these thirty-one original pieces include Pulitzer Prize winners, perennial bestselling novelists, and celebrated broadcast journalists.

Whether a gift was meant to keep a daughter warm, put a roof over her head, instruct her in the ways of womanhood, encourage her talents, or just remind her of a mother’s love, each story gets to the heart of a relationship.

Rita Dove remembers the box of nail polish that inspired her to paint her nails in the wild stripes and polka dots she wears to this day. Lisa See writes about the gift of writing from her mother, Carolyn See. Cecilia Muñoz remembers both the wok her mother gave her and a lifetime of home-cooked family meals. Judith Hillman Paterson revisits the year of sobriety her mother bequeathed to her when Paterson was nine, the year before her mother died of alcoholism. Abigail Pogrebin writes about her middle-aged bat mitzvah, for which her mother provided flowers after a lifetime of guilt for skipping her daughter’s religious education. Margo Jefferson writes about her mother’s gold dress from the posh department store where they could finally shop as black women.

Collectively, the pieces have a force that feels as elemental as the tides: outpourings of lightness and darkness; joy and grief; mother love and daughter love; mother love and daughter rage. In these stirring words we find that every gift, ?no matter how modest, tells the story of a powerful bond. As Elizabeth Benedict points out in her introduction, “whether we are mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, or cherished friends, we may not know for quite some time which presents will matter the most."

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter’s story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served...


A Note From the Publisher

Contributors include…

Roxana Robinson,

Caroline Leavitt,

Maud Newton,

Jean Hanff Korelitz,
Katha Pollitt,

Ann Hood,

Margo Jefferson,

Emma Straub,

Mary Gordon,

Judith Hillman Paterson,

Cheryl Pearl Sucher,

Abigail Pogrebin,

Reverend Liilian Daniel,

Celia Munoz,

Elissa Shapell,

Karen Karbo,

Charlotte Silver,

Rita Dove,

Luanne Rice,

Elinor Lipman,

Martha McPhee,

Dahlia Lithwick,

Mameve Medwed,

Susan Stamberg,

Joyce Carol Oates,

Sheila Kohler,
Marge Piercy,

Eleanor Clift,

Mary Morris,

Lisa See,

Elizabeth Benedict

Contributors include…

Roxana Robinson,

Caroline Leavitt,

Maud Newton,

Jean Hanff Korelitz,
Katha Pollitt,

Ann Hood,

Margo Jefferson,

Emma Straub,

Mary Gordon,

Judith...


Advance Praise

“As varied and unexpected and eloquent and moving as mother love itself, What My Mother Gave Me is a gift to all of us.”—Cathleen Schine

“Is there any bond more powerful than that of mothers and daughters? In this remarkable collection of essays by some of the finest writers at work today, the gifts we're given by our mothers are unpacked in all of their wild and complicated beauty. Whether we hold them in our hands or in our hearts, these gifts are ours to understand and behold. And that is perhaps the most valuable gift of all.”—Dani Shapiro

“The word 'mother' is one of the most familiar and emotive words in the English language but no two mothers, as this glittering collection makes clear, are the same. With such a wonderful group of authors I knew The Best Gift Ever would be a moving and deeply intelligent book. What I hadn't expected was that it would also be so suspenseful and so revelatory. As I turned these pages I was convinced that every one of these authors had written her essay just for me. I bet many other readers will feel that too.”—Margot Livesey

“As varied and unexpected and eloquent and moving as mother love itself, What My Mother Gave Me is a gift to all of us.”—Cathleen Schine

“Is there any bond more powerful than that of mothers and...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781616201357
PRICE $15.95 (USD)

Average rating from 11 members


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