Summer
Books Daughter: Dark snapshot not the whole picture
SNAPSHOTS: 20TH
CENTURY MOTHER-DAUGHTER FICTION Edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Janet
Berliner David R. Godine, 240 pages, $16.95
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REVIEWED By SONY
HOCKLANDER
A year or so ago, I came across my teenage diary in an old box of
keepsakes. Cracking open the 25-year-old lime green cover, I discovered a
long-forgotten full-page diatribe on all the ways my mother was failing me. As
the oldest and only daughter, I felt overburdened and under appreciated, my
adolescent needs overlooked by a mother whose time and emotional energy were
zapped daily by her unruly younger sons.
Yet in spite of how I felt at 15, as an adult I enjoy a close
relationship with my mother. Were alike in some ways, but we more often
approach our lives from opposite directions. Where she meanders
introspectively, I cut to the chase; where I need certain boundaries, she seems
blithely boundary-free. Yet somehow, our paths seem to always merge in the
middle.
Perhaps thats why I find the book Snapshots: 20th Century
Mother-Daughter Fiction to be, taken as a whole, an underexposed picture of
mothers, daughters and the relationships they share.
The collection of stories was selected and edited by writers Joyce
Carol Oates and Janet Berliner, whose work has also been included. Oates in her
forward says, This gathering of mother-daughter, or daughter-mother,
stories speaks to all of us, for if women, we have all been daughters.
With the exception of a few laborious selections, most are absorbing literary
works individually.
But collectively they feel unbalanced. This gathering is rather
dark, almost every story exposing emotional pain. Im not suggesting the
book should have been called Chicken Soup Snapshots. But as it stands, a
better title might be Its My Mothers Fault Im in
Therapy. There were nuggets of joy and hope, but no real celebration of
what is familiar to me and what I hope most women have: a strong, positive bond
between mother and daughter.
Some stories, if not exactly joyful, illustrate turning points in
relationships that hold the promise of positive growth. Most, though, depict
damaged or strained relationships, primarily from the daughters point of
view. In story after story, daughters contend with mentally ill mothers,
abusive mothers, ineffectual mothers.
Those kinds of mother-daughter relationships certainly do exist.
And for any adult daughter who feels emotionally detached from her mother, the
book would probably ring quite true. Or perhaps for a mother whose daughter is
aloof and unforgiving, it may offer some insight.
The book has merit. And I can recommend it for anyone who first
takes into account what it is -- a series of mostly interesting stories that
are indeed about mothers and daughters. But readers should understand what it
is not: a snapshot of the whole picture. Missing I think are more stories about
the average daughters and mothers who struggle to find the middle ground.
I know I certainly wasnt raised by a June Cleaver-clone. I
was 9 when my father died, leaving my mother, 29, to raise three kids on her
own. I remember months of entertaining my little brothers while my mother
grieved behind a locked bedroom door. When I was 12, she started a new
full-time career and I learned to cook and do my own laundry.
I was the good girl who rarely made waves so my mother could
contend with more pressing problems. I practically raised myself, she sometimes
laments. Maybe so. But the relationship she and I now share is warm, loving,
honest and most important, forgiving. Mothers and daughters dont always
have to see eye to eye to respect each others choices.
She loves weekend spiritual retreats and bicycles across whole
states. I dont have time for a ride across the neighborhood. And when she
suggested we take a mother-daughter retreat for my birthday, I said, How
about New York instead? Still, we can spend hours discussing our lives
and dissecting the worlds problems.
The final story in Snapshots, best reflects whats
most important in finding that middle ground. Everything Old Is New
Again, by Berliner, addresses forgiveness. After years of smoldering, a
middle-aged daughter finally learns to forgive. And in doing so, she is freed
to seek forgiveness from her own distant daughter.
Our ability to see our mothers as not only human, but fallible, is
a sign weve finally grown up. You might say, growing up means seeing the
best and forgiving the rest.
And for those of us daughters who are also mothers still raising
our own children, the hope is that we, too, would someday be just as
forgiven.
Sony Hocklander is a features writer for the Springfield
News-Leader in Springfield, Mo. While she enjoys being a daughter and a
mother, she was not destined to be the mother of a daughter, raising instead
two sons.
National Catholic Reporter, May 11,
2001
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