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Title details for Shadow Daughter by Harriet Brown - Available

Shadow Daughter

A Memoir of Estrangement

by Harriet Brown
ebook
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A riveting, provocative, and ultimately hopeful exploration of mother-daughter estrangement, woven with research and anecdotes, from an award-winning journalist.
The day of her mother's funeral, Harriet Brown was five thousand miles away. For years they'd gone through cycles of estrangement and connection, drastic blow-ups and equally dramatic reconciliations. By the time her mother died at seventy-six, they hadn't spoken at all in several years. Her mother's death sent Brown on a journey of exploration, one that considered guilt and trauma, rage and betrayal, and forgiveness.
Shadow Daughter tackles a subject we rarely discuss as a culture. Family estrangements — between parents and children, siblings, multiple generations — are surprisingly common, and even families that aren't officially estranged often have some experience of deep conflicts. Despite the fact that the issue touches most people one way or another, estrangement is still shrouded in secrecy, stigma, and shame. We simply don't talk about it, and that silence can make an already difficult situation even harder. Brown tells her story with clear-eyed honesty and hard-won wisdom; she also shared interviews with others who are estranged, as well as the most recent research on this taboo topic.
Ultimately, Shadow Daughter is a thoughtful, provocative, and deeply researched exploration of the ties that bind and break, forgiveness, reconciliation, and what family really means.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 6, 2018

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780738234540

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780738234540
      • File size: 2159 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      September 15, 2018
      A personal look at why adult children isolate themselves from their parents and other family members.Verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse are just some of the reasons why adult children distance themselves from their parents and relatives. Often, they have endured years of conflict, consistently attempting to do the right thing by remaining connected to their core family only to finally realize the best solution to this near-impossible scenario is to cut off all contact with the offender(s). In her latest book, Brown (Public Communications/Syracuse Univ.; Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight--and What We Can Do About It, 2015, etc.) shares her story of estrangement with her abusive mother, giving readers details on the numerous attempts she made to appease her, with little success. It was only when she realized her own life and those of her daughters were more valuable than her relationship with her mother that she managed to break free. Even then, she suffered from guilt and conflict as other members of her family tried to get her to reconcile her differences with her mother. Brown shares numerous other stories of children distancing themselves from family and explores the complex issues that this taboo act creates for both the separator and the separated. Family holidays, particularly Christmas, are often difficult to navigate. Our inherent nature is to be social, especially with blood relatives. As infants, we cling to our mothers for survival, so to go against these deep feelings takes courage and stamina and the ability to overcome loneliness and the possible shame of disrupting a dynamic that is often taken for granted. Brown's research and anecdotes help readers understand the many dilemmas involved in engaging in estrangement and offer support for those balancing on the edge of making this life-changing decision.A concise, readable examination of the hows and whys of family separations.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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