I was inspired by Mothers’ Day last Sunday (in the UK and Commonwealth) to have a look at some fictional mothers and daughters for this week’s Tuesday Three. Let's face it, apart from sisters, there are few relationships likely to provide better fodder for humorous fiction!
Jane Sigaloff’s Like Mother, Like Daughter features Alice, whose mother , Suzie, is approaching sixty but is acting like her coming birthday is her sixteenth instead. When she comes up with a hare-brained scheme to find love for herself and her daughter, Alice begins to despair - why can't she have a mother like other girls?
When her mother and sister have a car accident, Belinda “Benny” Bernstein flies home and is horrified by what she finds, in Pamela Ribon's Why Moms Are Weird. Not only is her mother dating three men at once, her house is filthy and filled with trash. Her sister is in an(other) abusive relationship and has started a collection of stray dogs. And what's even more galling is that neither of them have commented on Benny's weightloss.
Benny takes it upon herself to fix everything, but what she doesn't realise is that just because something's broke, doesn't mean she has to be the one to fix it. Anyone who has suffered guilt pangs at moving far from home - or who has a mother who is too close for comfort - will enjoy this book.
We couldn’t choose focus on mother/daugher relationships without including Postcards from the Edge now, could we? Former Hollywood actress, recovering alcoholic and drug addict with a famous mother Carrie Fisher’s novel about a Hollywood actress who's a recovering alcoholic and drug addict with a famous ... well, you get the idea! Postcards is a cult classic - a book to be read and re-read, gawped at and laughed over. And the film's pretty great too.
