Motherless Daughters

Ask any woman whose mother has died, and she will tell you that she is irrevocably altered, as deeply changed by her mother's death as she was by her mother's life. Although a mother's mortality is inevitable, no book had discussed the profound, lasting, and far-reaching effects of this loss—until Motherless Daughters, which became an instant classic.

Twenty years later, it is still the book that women of all ages look to for comfort and understanding when their mothers die, and the book that they continue to press into each other's hands. Building on interviews with hundreds of mother-loss survivors, the author's personal story of losing her mother, recent research in grief and psychology, and with a new afterword exploring how the legacy of mother loss shifts with the passage of time, Motherless Daughters reveals the shared experiences and core identity issues of motherless women:

Why the absence of a nurturing hand shapes a woman's identity throughout her lifespan

How present-day relationships are defined by past losses

How a woman can resolve past conflicts and move toward acceptance and healing

What grief really is: not a linear passage, but an ongoing cyclical journey