Mothers of the Mind

February 12, 2024
Journalist Trethewey (The Churchill Sisters) presents a revealing examination of the complicated relationships three famed authors shared with their mothers. According to Trethewey, Virginia Woolf craved the approval of her mother, Julia Stephen, who was often distant but recognized her daughter’s talents from a young age. Stephen loomed large in the novelist’s psyche after her death when Woolf was 13, inspiring the character Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse. By contrast, Trethewey notes that Agatha Christie received unconditional love from her mother, Clara Miller, after whom Christie modeled Jane Marple, an amateur detective and “unpretentious provincial lady who observes from the sidelines but understands more than anyone else exactly what is going on.” Sylvia Plath and her mother, Aurelia, had a more ambivalent relationship, sharing an ostensibly close bond that masked Plath’s resentment of what she perceived as Aurelia’s over protectiveness, a grudge that shaped the unflattering Aurelia stand-in Plath created for her roman à clef, The Bell Jar. The biographical background offers astute insight into how the writers’ mothers influenced their work and, in Aurelia’s case especially, show how the daughters’ writings are only half the story (Plath comes across as spoiled for treating her mother “more like a domestic help than an intellectual equal,” demanding Aurelia take care of her laundry when she would visit with husband Ted Hughes). It’s an original take on three literary legends.

March 1, 2024
An examination of the mothers behind some of history's most recognizable authors. In three parts, Trethewey, author of The Churchill Sisters, takes a deep dive into the lives of the women who raised Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Agatha Christie. Although all three have been written about in numerous works, this book shines a fresh light on how they were raised and how the women who raised them shaped their work. Trethewey begins with Julia Stephen, Wolff's mother, pulling from unpublished first-person accounts and historical documents. In this section, the author focuses on themes involving how Julia's beauty was a hindrance throughout her life; while she was a muse to many, she was ultimately unable to escape her own demons. Even though Julia lacked vanity, "Virginia believed there was a penalty for her mother's beauty....'[I]t came too readily, came too completely. It stilled life--froze it.' It made her seem aloof and untouchable." In the section on Clara Miller, Christie's mother, Trethewey describes how Clara displayed a wide breadth of complex emotions and rich intelligence, as well as how Clara and Agatha's relationship was quite different from Julia and Virginia's relationship. "They adored each other and that unconditional love was the bedrock on which Agatha built her life," she writes. Lastly, Trethewey delves into the tumultuous relationship between Aurelia and Sylvia Plath. "Reflecting the duality of her personality," she writes, "there was a bond between mother and daughter as intense and loving as Agatha's with Clara, but running alongside that version, in Sylvia's mind there was an equally powerful relationship which was full of hatred and resentment." Although each mother endured her fair share of challenges, they raised women who went on to change the course of literature. Trethewey provides an informative portrait of the similarities and differences among each of them. An insightful biographical portrait.

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