THE LONG SHADOW OF A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE....

The author grew up in a home overshadowed by a brilliant, Radcliffe-trained academic mother, Fredelle, who couldn't get a teaching job because she was a woman. In the background, but also always noticed, was her charming, dashing father, Max, who was a professor and an artist (but also an alcoholic). Fredelle provided income as a writer, but the anger she felt over the inequities of her situation seemingly consumed her at times. But she focused her considerable energies upon her home and her daughters, Rona, followed later by Joyce.

Rona recalls her sister as the family charmer, while she was the rebel. While still in college, she married, and then a year later, had her son. In the large shadow of her mother (and then of her sister, who at eighteen went off to live with J. D. Salinger), Rona still managed to blossom as a writer and an editor. She had to fight against a chronic depression and the label of being called a "bad mother" by her son's teachers and her own mother for working long hours.

Struggling to forge her unique identity, against these influences and these odds, is the driving force of this memoir. It is a reminder for each woman of how her own mother's stamp of approval or disapproval informs her life. It is also a triumphant declaration of how history, family environment, and the times in which she lived created a woman who excelled in spite of the odds. Her quote: "I became who I am in spite of her and because of her."

I enjoyed reading the history of the author and her family, for I have read and followed her sister's literary journey. Rona's story fills in a few more pieces of this puzzle. I chose four stars for My Mother's Daughter: A Memoir because, at times, the journey was a bit tedious. I would recommend it to those who love memoirs, or who can relate to the mother-daughter issues.