A Reading List Of Realistic Portraits Of Mothers And Daughters In Literature

When reading about mothers and daughters, we might feel grateful we didn’t have to endure such conflict and trauma. We might long for what we, ourselves, never had. But then again, we might feel seen. More often, literature reflects troubling, toxic, or estranged mother-daughter relationships than they do healthy, positive, even inspiring ones. Many works of literary prose—novels, essay collections, memoirs—portray relationships between mothers and daughters who embrace the complexity of their respective identities and personalities, of their own and of their mothers/daughters.