Mary Oliver: A Life

Born in 1865, Mary Olivier is the youngest of four. Mamma, the archetype of all women who rule through weakness and suffering, dominates her Victorian household, idolizing her sons, rejecting the independent love of her only daughter. Mary, in response, b

Born in 1865, Mary Olivier is the youngest of four children. Mamma dominates this Victorian household, idolising the boys, rejecting the independent love of her only daughter: the archetype of all women who control by weakness and suffering. Mary adores her mother- and she hates her. Ferociously intelligent, she vacillates between a passionate quest for her own artistic and sexual identity.

This is one of the first novels ever written about a mother and daughter relationship, and the eternal conflict engendered by the deepest of ties. But it is a celebration too: for though Mary sacrifices her life- and her lover- to the demands of duty, she emerges victorious, finding in the discovery of her intellectual and feminine self an inner freedom, a perfect happiness.