HER DAUGHTER

In Hawthorne’s novel, a mother investigates her past and present to reconcile with her estranged daughter.

Alice Wilson receives an email from her ex-husband, Dan, announcing that their long-estranged daughter, Esme, has been arrested (“she doesn’t want to hear from you”). The news cracks open silent years of guilt and longing. A successful environmental financial analyst, Alice has lived with the ache of separation since Esme chose to live with her father. His manipulative charm and quiet vindictiveness fractured their family, leaving Alice adrift. Determined to uncover what happened, she plunges into an emotional investigation, contacting the police, catching up with Esme’s old friends, and confronting her own past actions. The narrative alternates between the present-day search and flashbacks that chart the disintegration of a marriage built on control and fear, as well as the mother-daughter bond that faltered under its weight. Themes of parental alienation, identity, and the long shadow of emotional abuse emerge; Alice’s pursuit of Esme begins as an effort to “rescue” her daughter from the arrest, but it gradually becomes a reckoning with her own complicity, pride, and capacity for forgiveness. By the time Alice and Esme begin to reconnect, the author has turned a story of estrangement into one of cautious hope and moral complexity. The novel explores the pain of mother-daughter estrangement with empathy and grounded realism. Hawthorne’s prose is clean and deliberate, emphasizing realism over melodrama. Her somewhat journalistic approach ensures that scenes of professional maneuvering regarding matters like green finance push the plot forward. The dual timelines are well managed, revealing the family’s history in increments that build emotional tension without resorting to sentimentality. Though the pace occasionally slackens, the story’s patient unfolding suits its subject: the slow, halting work of understanding another person. The author resists tidy resolutions, offering instead a nuanced portrayal of love stretched to its limits. The novel succeeds as both a psychological portrait and a social study, treating family estrangement with candor and quiet compassion.

A deep dive into the pain of separation and hope for reconciliation conveyed with grace, realism, and empathy.