Rebecca M. Painter spent her first eight years on a berry farm in Washington State, the daughter of Rachel Williams, an idealistic, poetry-loving New Zealander and an influential American Theosophist, Roger Painter. Her parents met when Rachel was on a trans-Pacific vacation to the Pacific Northwest in 1939, when the much older American convinced her to break her engagement to her New Zealand fiancé. Rebecca grew up around free-thinking nonconformists, but her father's accidental death and the subsequent loss of their barely sustainable farm threw the small family into trying circumstances. Rachel's second husband abandoned them, and her third was oddly aloof, perhaps triggered her bewildering accusation in Rebecca's early teens that Rebecca did not love her. Her mother delivered this demoralizing judgment in traumatizing monologues that seemed calculated to destroy her daughter's sense of self-worth. Thus began Rebecca's lifelong study of the nature of subtle forms of interpersonal evil. She survived her adolescent trauma by focusing on her studies and music practice (drums and piano), winning a scholarship to an elite private women's college and acceptance into Columbia University's doctoral program in English and comparative literature. Her academic career came to an abrupt halt during the Vietnam War, when Columbia lost federal support for fellowships in the liberal arts. Though forced to find work as a secretary, Rebecca spent ten fruitful years at the Rockefeller Foundation, where her scholarly background enabled her to take on professional assignments--writing major project descriptions for its board of trustees, screening grant proposals and advising promising applicants on effective proposals. She would use these skills as a development consultant, while completing her doctorate in comparative literature at New York University. After over 20 years teaching college courses in writing, literature, and interdisciplinary humanities on challenging themes such as women's views of evil, Dr. Painter decided to write her own contribution to that field: a memoir about her relationship with her mother. The result is [LOVE] RACHEL - A Daughter's Memoir of Love, Betrayal and Grace.

“...a family saga that bristles with intellectual rigor, fierce resolve, and deep spiritual compassion....”
– Kirkus Reviews