Just like snowflakes and fingerprints, mother-daughter relationships are never exactly alike. Giving birth, raising a child, learning to love that child for who they are (unconditionally): becoming a mother can be both one of the most rewarding and challenging roles a woman fulfills in her lifetime.
Motherhood and daughterhood can be difficult to put into words, but the following books make a fantastic attempt to capture the complexities of this relationship within the magical realist genre.
The Falling Woman is a 1986 psychological fantasy novel centered on a magical mother and her estranged daughter. When famous scientist Elizabeth Butler leaves home to explore the dark past of the Yucatan, she looks beyond the scattered bones and pottery fragments left by her archaeologist coworkers. On every work trip, Elizabeth always carries two things with her: a hidden ability to commune with the dead and the burden of abandoning her daughter. As she uses her powers to speak with Mexico’s forgotten ghosts, Elizabeth is forced to bear the brunt of this burden when her estranged daughter flies to the excavation site in hopes of reuniting with her mother. Turns out, digging up the truth in her own life may be more than she bargained for. As noted by Samuel R. Delany, “A lovely and literate exploration of the dark moment where myth and science meet.”
Among Mona Awad’s accolades for her 2023 novel Rouge, A USA TODAY Bestseller, A New York Times Editors’ Choice, and A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist are just a few. Rouge’s protagonist is Belle, a skincare-and-beauty-obsessed woman trying to fit into 21st-century beauty standards. But when Belle’s mother dies, she must go back home to Southern California, replacing the care she once put into herself with grief and trying to understand how her mother accumulated so much debt without telling her. Belle’s confusion surrounding her mother’s personal life and untimely death only expands when a stranger pulls her aside at the funeral, offering her a set of cryptic clues about her mother’s passing and a chance to undergo a once-in-a-lifetime spa experience. Unable to resist the temptation of beauty, Belle goes to La Maison de Méduse, the same cult-like spa her mother was a member of. Beyond its barbed entrance, Belle must ask herself if this group of women played a role in her mother’s death – and how much she is willing to sacrifice her own life for the chance to be beautiful. Lovers of Mona’s novel Bunny will devour this Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut surrealist story.
Blending historical romance with modern fantasy, The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston is a compelling and dark take on the magical world of witches. When Elizabeth Hawksmith’s mother is hanged by the village’s witchhunter in 1628, she knows she must save herself from the same fate – while maintaining the powers her mother passed down to her. She finds the Warlock Gideon Masters, where she learns how to master her craft in his secluded cabin. As many women do, Elizabeth underestimated how strong her lineage’s powers were. Warlock Gideon accidentally helped her unlock all of her magic, making her immortal. Her immortality serves her well, allowing her to live a quiet life away from witch-hunters in modern-day England. She thinks the fear surrounding witches is long gone – until she realizes the hunters have been hiding, too. Paula’s publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, claims “Readers will long remember the fiercely independent heroine who survives plagues, wars, and the heartbreak that comes with immortality to remain true to herself, and protect the protégé she comes to love.”
Ruth Young’s relationship with her widowed mother LuLing has always been difficult, and Ruth has never known why. But when she discovers documents detailing her mother’s past in China, everything about their dynamic changes. Transported back to her mother’s childhood village, Immortal Heart, Ruth learns secrets from a mute nursemaid; secrets of dragon bones, a deadly ravine, and the curse that her mother brought onto herself through a hidden betrayal. Through her prose, Amy Tan excavates past trauma with diligence and care, taking us on a journey through one mother’s mistakes and one daughter’s attempt to erase them from history. As written by The Philadelphia Inquirer, “No one writes about mothers and daughters with more empathy than Amy Tan.”
The women of the Waverley family are anything but ordinary. The garden behind their family home in Bascom, North Carolina, is known by the town to bear fruit of powerful magical properties. The town also knows the women tending to this garden are even more powerful, giving the Waverleys a legacy no one dares to ruin. Claire Waverley uses her family’s legacy to her advantage, living alone in the family house while running her successful catering business with the magical herbs and fruits from her backyard. Claire is unbothered by her simple life or the absence of her rebellious sister Sydney, who ran away from their small town over a decade ago. But then Sydney returns to Bascom with her daughter, and both the tranquility of Claire’s small town life and the garden she has protected for so long begin to dissipate.
Emily X.R. Pan’s 2018 magical realist novel The Astonishing Color of After is a beautiful exploration of grief, mental health, art, and untangling family history. When protagonist Leigh Chen Sanders’ mother dies by suicide, there is only one thing she becomes certain of: her mother transformed into a bird after her death. She travels to Taiwan for the first time to meet her maternal grandparents and find her mother as a bird – but the skies remain empty. Leigh's new relationship with her grandparents sends her on a journey to uncover family secrets, chase ghosts, and find out who she is without a mother in the physical world. Alternating between magic and reality, The Astonishing Color of After is an emotional read that teaches us how to cultivate hope in the midst of despair. Read for yourself why this book was a Goodreads Choice Award winner, and let us know what you think.
Alexandra Rae is a feminist writer, editor, and revisionist from Ohio. She is a submissions reader for Narratively and editorial assistant for Brink Books. Find her on Instagram @theresonationofalexandra.
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