Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss [Paperback]

Hope Edelman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0385314388 | ISBN-13: 978-0385314381 | Publication Date: April 1, 1995 | Edition: 1

In the tradition of Passages  and My Mother, My Self, this  unique, personal, and ground-breaking New  York Times best-seller -- the first of  its kind -- explores the profound pain of mother  loss among women and is available here for the  first time in paperback. "When my mother died,  I knew no woman my age who had experienced mother  loss. I felt utterly and irrevocably alone. In  college, where new friends knew only as much about  me as I was willing to reveal, I told few people  my mother had died. I searched the university  library and local bookstoresfor writings about  mother loss. In each book I found about  mother-daughter relationships, I quickly flipped ahead to the  chapter about a mother's death, but discovered  they all assumed the reader would be in her forties  or fifties when her mother dies. I was eighteen."  --excerpt from Motherless  Daughters.

Not only for motherless  daughters, but for all women who want to better  understand the mother/daughter relationship, this  beautifully written work inspired an Anna  Quindlen column; appeared in the New York Times, Ingram,  Barnes & Noble, and San Francisco best-seller  lists; and received an extraordinary amount of  media attention including a feature on The Today  Show. Hope Edelman lost her mother to breast cancer  when she was eighteen. Unable to find a book to  help her understand and cope with that loss, she  decided to write her own. She posted notices  asking motherless women to share their experiences  with her, and was unprepared for both the number of  responses she received, and for their emotional  intensity. Eventually meeting with 92 women and  surveying 154 by mail, Hope was able to compare how  mother loss affects daughters differently  depending on their ages, their relationships to their  mothers, their father's attitude, and the support  or dependency of siblings. But more important  Hope's book explores what these women share -- a void  in their lives they cannot seem to fill. Their  common experiences and insights will help  motherless daughters, and those who care about them, come  to better understand how this painful loss shapes  lives forever.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Edelman shares her own painful story and the stories of many other women who, as children or adults, lost their mothers. She explains the stages of grief and adjustment. She considers the secondary effects that can occur: the girl-child filling the lost mother's role at home for father and younger siblings. If you've lost your mother, you no longer have to face it alone. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The death of a mother--particularly during one's young years--is traumatic. Writing of her own experiences of losing her mother when she was 17, and the grief of hundreds of women she interviewed who lost their mothers through death, abandonment or another form of separation, freelance writer Edelman marshals a wealth of anecdotal evidence, supplemented with psychological research about bereavement, that indicates that one's longing for a mother never disappears. Though the focus is on early loss for girls and the implications for their developing identity, adult daughters also speak in these pages to provide another poignant perspective. The author succeeds in opening up cathartic dialogues, personalizing a life-changing event and offering guidelines to help women of any age live with their loss. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Delta; 1 edition (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385314388
• ISBN-13: 978-0385314381
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (133 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #196,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hope Edelman is the internationally acclaimed author of five nonfiction books, including the bestsellers Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers, as well as the recent memoir The Possibility of Everything. She has lectured extensively on the subjects of early mother loss and nonfiction writing in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Glamour, Child, Seventeen, Real Simple, Parents, Writer's Digest, and Self, and her original essays have appeared in many anthologies, including The Bitch in the House, Blindsided by a Diaper, and Behind the Bedroom Door. Her work has received a New York Times notable book of the year designation and a Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction. She can be found in Iowa City every July teaching at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. The rest of the year, she lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband and their two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helps with Healing, July 27, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss (Paperback)

I lost my mother to cancer when I was sixteen years old. When I went back to school after the funeral, I think I did what alot of girls do, I acted like I was fine, because I didn't want anyone to know what was going on inside of me. This lasted for a couple of years, and during my first year of college, my father bought me this book. I kept it unread in a drawer for a long time, I didn't want to deal with my moms death. She was my best friend, and I couldn't accept that she was gone. Finally, I picked up the book and began to read. I was only a few pages in, when I began to cry like I hadn't since the night she died. It was hard for me to read the book, but I did, a few pages at a time, over a couple of weeks. I never realized that while other girls lose their mother under different circumstances, there are still things that are similar, and bind all of we "motherless daughters" together. This book helped in ways I can't even begin to describe. It gave me someone to relate to (none of my friends had ever lost a parent). I highly recommend this book to anyone who has lost their mother, no matter how old you were, or how long ago it happened. It helped me face my pain, and work through it, like nothing else could. I know it is difficult to deal with, but Hope Edelman's book really helps make a tragic situation, a bit easier to cope with.

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent treatment of a very personal situation, November 8, 2000

By 

MarvelousMarla "MarvyM" (Way down in Dixie) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss (Paperback)

I lost my mother when I was just 13 years old and although it's been 16 years, I still feel the loss every day. Like the author, I had an overwhelming sense of grief in my mid-twenties. I mean it was like I was newly bereaved again. I would come home and cry. Or I would dream about her for consecutive nights. I am so glad that Ms. Edelmen took on this topic. Intellectually, I knew that I wasn't alone, but I am the only one in my immediate circle of friends whose mother is deceased so that makes for awkward moments on Mother's day and other holidays. Of course the sympathetic ones want to be a sort of replacement, but that's not what I want. I want my actual mother, my nurturer and my friend. It's so hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced this loss, especially since I am an adult now. I remember that shortly after mom passed some callous relative actually had the nerve to tell me, "Life goes on." As if I didn't know that already. As if it were that simple.

Thank you Hope, for helping us motherless daughters understand that the impact of this loss can be lifelong. I've long suspected that the absence of my mother has affected my intimate relationships and even my relationships with other females. It's one thing to feel something intuitively and quite another to see that someone else has not only felt that same way, but has researched it. I'm still reading this book, but I felt so strongly about it that offer up my heartfelt thanks right now. This book is a blessing, and not just for daughter whose mothers are deceased. Hope also addresses women who have been abandoned ny their mothers and those who have never known their mothers.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars it's okay to grieve, January 6, 2000

By 

nikki imbach, [e-mail] (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss (Paperback)

I am 24 and lost my mother two months ago. I have been feeling a deep sense of emptiness and have come to the conclusion that in general, the world seems to overlook the pain of parent loss. It's said to be a natural cycle of life, however, when you're young, there's nothing natural about it. I just happened across this book as I was browsing in a book store, and can honestly say that it has not only given me permission to grieve deeply, but it has validated many of my feelings of loss. As the world tends to tell you to "get on with your life," or "stop playing the victim," this book encourages people to aknowledge that mother loss is indeed a profound loss, and one that can affect a person for a long time. Accepting the painfulness of a loss and feeling grief is not playing the victim role, it's simply being human. As I watched the world respond to my mother's death, the outpouring for my father was tremendous and in many ways my sister and I stood in the background and observed this. This book confirmed that it's no wonder mother loss is so painful, it's the first relationship one ever experiences and once it's gone there is no substition, no new parent. My father may remarry, but my sister and I will never have another mother. Through this book I have been able to allow myself to grieve deeply and understand that my loss is not more, and certainly not less than anyone elses, just different.

The biggest thing I learned from reading this book was that it's important to face the grief and saddness head-on It has to be dealt with at some point and the sooner the better. I am so glad that someone was able validate and address the pain surrounding mother loss at not only a younger age, but at any age.