When Your Mother Doesn't: A Novel

A Revealing and Intimate Story of What a Mother Will—and Will Not—Do for Her Daughters

What kind of women do daughters become when their fathers are missing and their mothers can’t love them? How do they find love and ways to love themselves?

Nearly three decades of secrets lie between Lola Ashby and the two girls she reluctantly raised. Now, prompted by the one father figure she respects, older daughter Frankie agrees to drive from Portland to visit her ailing mother, who abandoned the girls...