Lives Our Mothers Leave Us: Prominent Women Discuss the Complex, Humorous, and Ultimately Loving Relationships They Have with Their Mothers »

Patti Davis is the author of six books, most recently The Long Goodbye , a memoir of her late father, former President Ronald Reagan. Her articles have appeared in many magazines and newspapers. She lives in Los Angeles, where quite to her surprise and delight, she shares her home with two cats.

Ward Schumaker is the author-illustrator of three children's books, including In My Garden . He lives in San Francisco.

THE LIVES OUR MOTHERS LEAVE US The title The Lives Our Mothers Leave Us encapsulates what this book by Patti Davis is about. No matter what a woman achieves in her life, no matter how old she gets or whether or not she herself becomes a mother, she is always and forever a daughter. The Women Whose Stories Are Included... Patti Davis Carolyn See Melissa Gilbert Anna Quindlen Rosanna Arquette Mary Kay Place Faye Wattleton Lily Tomlin Carnie Wilson Mariel Hemingway Candice Bergen Marg Helgenberger Lorna Luft Linda Bloodworth Thomason Anjelica Huston Ruby Dee Julianna Margulies Diahann Carroll Marianne Williamson Whoopi Goldberg Cokie Roberts Anne Rice Alice Hoffman Kathy Smith

Publishers Weekly

"Sometime around the age of 40, most of us realize that our mothers live deep inside us," proclaims novelist Davis (TheLong Goodbye) in this series of interviews with more than 20 well-known women of a certain generation-Melissa Gilbert, Candice Bergen, Anjelica Huston, Whoopi Goldberg and Cokie Roberts, to name a few-about their relationships with their mothers. Some of the mothers led careers as entertainers (like Lorna Luft's mother, Liza Minnelli), activists and preachers, but many were wives, homemakers and divorcées. The result is a cross between reaffirming self-help book and candid women's narrative, with individual daughters' stories creating a kind of collective memoir. Readers may recognize traces of their own relationships with their mothers as these women recount histories of addiction, sickness and death, along with memories of friendship, strength and reconciliation. Davis interjects to offer uplifting, if boilerplate and unnecessary, interpretations of each woman's journey, but the voices of the daughters, now seasoned with age, contemplation and perspective, are reaffirming in their own right. (Apr.)

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