In My Mother's House depicts a profound, intergenerational struggle between a powerful, politically engaged mother, Rose, and her spiritually inclined poet and writer daughter, Kim. Framing this collision are two other generations. There is Rose's mother from the shtetl, a broken woman regularly beaten by her husband but the source of the family's stories. And Kim's daughter, a second-generation, fully assimilated girl of eight at the time the book begins. Four generations, from the shtetl to an affluent intellectual household in Berkeley, California, the story is a historical record and reckoning between the old activist left and a beginning feminist movement. The double narrative allows Kim to explore the evolving relationship between mother and daughter, who, through their storytelling, are brought to a profound understanding and reconciliation.
Kim Chernin, PhD, has won acclaim for her numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including A Different Kind of Listening, My Life as a Boy, The Obsession, In My Mother's House (nominated for Chronicle Critics Award and chosen as Alice Walker's Favorite Book of the Year in the New York Times, 1983), The Flame Bearers (New York Times Notable Book, 1986), and the national best seller The Hungry Self. She lives in Point Reyes, California, with her life-companion, Renate Stendhal, and their two dogs, Buckle and Teddy. She is a nationally recognized expert in eating disorders and also is in private practice.
Foreword Acknowledgments Part One: Wasn't I Once Also a Daughter? The Proposal The First Story My Mother Tells Childhood in Russia (1903-1914) Oy, My Enlightenment The Second Story My Mother Tells Do This for Me, Rose The Third Story My Mother Tells A Larger World (1920-1928) Three Sisters The Fourth Story My Mother Tells I Fight for My Mother (1928-1932) Wasn't I Once Also a Daughter? Part Two: The Almond Giver She Comes to Visit The Fifth Story My Mother Tells Motherland (1932-1934) A Walk in the Woods The Sixth Story My Mother Tells The Organizer (1934-1938) The Rose Garden The Seventh Story My Mother Tells Letters (1938-1940) The Almond Giver The Eighth Story My Mother Tells A Birth and a Death (1940-1946) Part Three: The Survivor 414 East 204th Street The Crossroads The First Story I Tell Hard Times (1947-1952) Take a Giant Step The Second Story I Tell A Communist Childhood (1952-1957) A Knock at the Door The Third Story I Tell Motherland Revisited (1957-1967) What Remains Epilogue
