Fierce Attachments

Vivian Gornick's Fierce Attachments--hailed by the New York Times for the renowned feminist author's 'mesmerizing, thrilling' truths within its pages--has been selected by the publication's book critics as the #1 Best Memoir of the Past 50 Years. In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. There have been numerous books about mother and daughter, but none has dealt with this closest of filial relations as directly or as ruthlessly. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called 'the principal crux of female despair' the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of 'urban peasants,' Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian.