(no subject)

[cahn]

I asked everyone for recs of books with dads, and I now want to make the same post for moms! (I was going to wait until I had had a chance to read more of the recs in the dad post -- thank you everyone!! -- but then forestofglory had an interesting post about where all the SFF moms have gone which made me think I should go ahead and ask :) )

The rules of the game are as before: Please rec me books with moms who are important characters (important secondary character is fine, and "important" can be defined as you like -- important enough to remember a month later? :) ) and for whom parenting is an important component of their character, with kids who are older at the time of canon (I said teenager in the other post, but really I mean not babies or toddlers). They don't need to be good parents, necessarily, and they can make horrible mistakes, but they should be (relatively?) non-abusive and clearly love their kid(s). (forestofglory's post was about SFF books, but you do not have to be limited to SFF here.)

The interesting thing is, at first I wasn't sure I'd be able to come up with any, but looking at our bookshelf there seem to be more moms than dads. I strongly suspect this is a me-filtering thing, in that I tend to remember strong moms, and maybe don't remember the good dads that much? And also books that I've hung on to seem to have tended to have strong moms?

-The Broken Earth (Jemisin), Essun (arguably she falls into "abusive," but I'm gonna leave her here anyway because the books are actually partially about examining that dynamic)
-Tenar in the later Earthsea books
-Cordelia and Ekaterin in the Vorkosigan books
-Tagiri in Pastwatch (Card)
-Actually a lot of Card's stuff during what I call his "good period" -- Novinha in Speaker for the Dead, DeAnne Fletcher in Lost Boys (whom I rather imprinted on in high school, actually), Rasa in the Homecoming series
-The POV character in "Story of Your Life" (Ted Chiang)
-Dione in Throne of Isis (Judith Tarr)
-I never managed to finish the Gap series (Donaldson), but I'm pretty sure I remember Morn Hyland being a mom is a Big Thing
-Abigail Tillerman! I'm gonna go ahead and mention Liza too, because even though her actual screen time is maybe one page, I still consider her a major character in the first two books. (I guess the Professor is also a dad who is a major character in Solitary Blue, which somehow I both totally glossed over in the dad post and had to think about for a minute to come up with here ("There must be a sympathetic dad character in these books!"))
-Little Women and sequels
-Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu from the Rihannsu books (Duane)
-I believe Hild's mom is a reasonably important character but I don't remember super well (Griffith)
-Ingray's mom in Provenance (maybe? She does seem to care about Ingray, even if she has pretty terrible ways of showing it)

Honorable mentions (characters that might not completely fit my criteria but I'm gonna mention them anyway, and hey, if you have an idea that doesn't exactly fit, feel free to mention it):
-Meg Murry O'Keefe (I actually really like that she gives up being a mathematician for a while, because valid choice, but on the other hand she doesn't get a big role in the books once she becomes a mom, which is in retrospect kind of annoying)
-FMA, which has everything else, doesn't have an important living mom of a non-small-child unless you count Mrs. Bradley, which maybe I should because what she lacks in screen time she makes up by being totally awesome, although Selim... probably... counts as a small child
-The Connie Willis story "And Come from Miles Around" has a mom whose kid is a toddler, but I mention it anyway because it is my favorite SF story (possibly the only story) about a stay-at-home-mom saving the day
-Selenay in the Valdemar books, although I can't remember how old Elspeth was at the time of the books... I seem to remember she was older than she was acting, though

Comments

[zdenka]

Amelia Peabody in the Amelia Peabody series (Elizabeth Peters).

[cahn]

Ah! I have a friend who I know has a bunch of those on her bookshelf. Will investigate further :)

[zdenka]

The child is non-existent at the beginning of the series, and then he's a small child, but he grows up. :) Amelia and her husband also acquire another series-important child later at about age 12, IIRC.

[cahn]

Ah, I really like families that persist and grow during series :)

[genarti]

Elspeth started out as... 8ish, I want to say? But maybe she was a bit older than that. Anyway, she's adult in later books when Selenay is still around, even if she spends much of that time away from home.

I would also suggest:

In Diane Duane's Young Wizards books, Nita Callahan's parents are both significant supporting characters for the first few. Then her mother dies (of cancer), but she's a significant character throughout that and in memory later.

Robin McKinley's Spindle's End. Okay, the characters would refer to themselves as godmothers, IIRC, and are careful not to claim the place of Rosie's birth mother (since they're raising her in hiding to protect her), but... they raise her from infancy to a teenager. They're her adoptive mothers in every way that matters, really.

[cahn]

Right, Nita Callahan's parents! ase even brought up her dad on the last post and I didn't think to put her in here. *slaps forehead*

Oh, Spindle's End! It's been a long time since I've read it, long enough that I've forgotten pretty much everything in it, which means it must be time for another reread :D

[rosefox]

As mentioned on forestofglory's post, Catelyn Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire certainly qualifies. Cersei Lannister... um... technically non-abusive? certainly loves her kids? but not really a role model.

Copying over my comment from there:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Lady Jessica in Dune, one of the most powerful and significant SF/F mothers of all time.

In Jane Yolen's Great Alta books and Tanya Huff's Quarters books, the heroine of an earlier book has a child who grows up to be a protagonist in a later book. The earlier heroines do fade into the background a bit once they become mothers, but they're there and significant.

I don't exactly recommend David and Leigh Eddings's Belgariad/Malloreon series, but Polgara is actually a pretty great mother figure (she's technically the hero's many-times-great-aunt but raises him from a baby) and her mother, Poledra, is a significant side character in later books. The series heroine, Ce'Nedra, becomes a mother between series one and series two, but her child is a baby/toddler for all of series two and is also kidnapped very early on, so we don't see her being maternal in any real way.

Ygrawn in Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's Arthur books definitely deserves a mention.

Toll in James K. Schmitz's The Witches of Karres is the mother of the titular witches, and doesn't show up much but is terrific when she's there. (She is an almighty good witch.)

I realize there aren't any recent books on the list... I will keep pondering.

On the non-SF/F front, Marilyn Pappano's A Man to Hold on To, a contemporary romance, has a widowed heroine with teen stepkids who's absolutely wonderful. The book is very much about what it means to be a mother—the kids' bio mom basically doesn't want them, and Therese has to step up for them even when they push her away. A real tearjerker, like most of Pappano's books.

I'm not going to get further into women's fiction and contemporary romance because mothers abound there!

[cahn]

Haha, Cersei! Yep, she qualifies, although I can see why I didn't come up with her. Should have come up with Catelyn Stark, though. And OH, Lady Jessica! I have Dune right on my shelf, too. YES.

I totally smiled to see Ygrawn's name here! And Emer, while she's a relatively minor character, is certainly pretty great.

I... don't know anything about Pappano! That sounds rather great.

Yeah, I know, a lot of mine were older books too, which I found a little odd/concerning.

[ambyr]

Patricia C Wrede’s Caught in Crystal and Brandon Sanderson’s Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell (novella) both feature widowed single mothers who are innkeepers and who are forced by circumstances to bring their older kids along on dangerous adventures. (They are otherwise very different works.)

[cahn]

HUH. I know I bought Caught in Crystal a long long time ago and never actually got around to reading it, despite having liked other Wrede books. I should see whether it's still around somewhere!

[forestofglory]

Thanks for the link! I haven't read a couple of these so I will look into them and also keep an eye on the comments here.

Also I'd recommend The Natural History of Dragons books, Isabella does start out as a mom but once her kid is born she has to deal with being a mom and and scientist and it's really well handled. Also Records of a Space Born Few has two viewpoint characters who are moms. It's the thrid book in a serries but stands alone. Oh and Jo Walton's Lifelode, which is kinda hard to find has a serval great mom characters and lots of housework.

[cahn]

Ah! Yes, I've read the first Natural History of Dragons and I should have realized! Neat, I will have to pick up the second one.

Wow, I went looking up Lifelode and yeah, that looks hard to find, which is too bad because your mention of housework intrigued me :)

[thistleingrey]

I've been trying to offload books. If you'd like Lifelode sent you, email or DM me a postal address. *checks* Yep, still have it and (bonus) know where it is. :)

[cahn]

Done! Thank you! :)

[thistleingrey]

hmm, I don't see where I was expecting? (This nym @ g mail.)

[cahn]

Ah, sent it to the wrong place. Try now :)

[thistleingrey]

Got it--will attempt to ship on Sat (if so, will email you USPS tracking; if not, it'll be one more week).

[cahn]

Lovely, thank you! And of course no worries either way. Can I paypal you shipping costs?

[thistleingrey]

Book rate is usually only a couple of dollars, so no? :) Also, now I see where you first sent the info--sorry. (I don't check it daily.) And no, neither invited nor going--news to me!--but I wish them well. (I don't think my ex is going, either.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I seem to recall Pa Ingalls getting a mention, so Ma Ingalls should.

[cahn]

I even THOUGHT about her and somehow she didn't make it to the post, poor Ma. So thanks :) (And she totally gets a mention, gosh, she had to put up with a lot.)

Which also reminds me of Katie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was also brought up in the previous post :)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I've been rereading Spindle's End, and Aunt and Katriona, while not biological mothers, raise Rose, and there's a lot of emphasis on parenting.

[cahn]

genarti mentioned that too! I've read it, but so long ago that I literally remember nothing about it -- time to pick it back up again, clearly :)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Did you ever pick up A String in the Harp? Curious what you thought.

[cahn]

No! I kept expecting it to be at the library, which I feel is not an unreasonable expectation, but I just searched for it (which I should have done when a couple of consecutive trips didn't turn it up) and in fact it was an unreasonable expectation. But now I've put it on hold and so I should be getting it in a week or so :D

[mildred_of_midgard]

Iza in Clan of the Cave Bear! (No italics because I'm on my phone.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ellen and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind.

[mildred_of_midgard]

And Scarlett in the eponymous sequel, of course.

[cahn]

ha! :) I have not actually read Gone with the Wind (or, of course, the sequel) despite having grown up in the right part of the country for it.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Scarlett starts out an indifferent and neglectful "Why do these rugrats keep following me around?" mother to her first two kids, turns into an overindulgent mother at the end of GWTW to her third kid, and by the end of Scarlett, is actually a good mother to her fourth kid. There's a pretty clear difference in Scarlett having kids in her teens, 20s, and 30s.

[mildred_of_midgard]

The Signature of All Things has a prominent mom and dad in the first half or so.

[cahn]

I don't know this book! What is it about?

[mildred_of_midgard]

That's complicated enough it'll have to wait until I'm off the phone and on the computer. Hopefully this weekend.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay. You've read Beggars in Spain, right? I remember discussing Roger Camden in the dads post. I will now explain The Signature of All Things by analogy with Beggars in Spain.

Imagine it's the nineteenth century. No Sleepless plotline, obviously. Imagine Leisha is raised by Roger Camden, and also a mother who is almost exactly like Roger Camden. And her disfavored younger sister is extremely beautiful. Leisha becomes a natural historian and specializes in the study of moss.

Then her parents die, and instead of the book becoming an interesting and nuanced exploration of political, philosophical, and ethical issues, it becomes bizarre and pointless, wherein she meets a guy, has an unsuccessful marriage, and embarks on a weird interlude to Tahiti to find the guy her husband might have been having sex with (insert vaguely homophobic undertones), and (rot13 for spoilers) qrpvqrf fur yvxrf uvz naq tvirf uvz n oybj wbo. This whole second half of the novel can safely be skipped. Then at the very end, we go back to her scientific work and it becomes good again, and she qvfpbiref angheny fryrpgvba, snvyf gb choyvfu va gvzr, zrrgf hc jvgu Nyserq Ehffryy Jnyynpr gb flzcnguvmr nobhg orvat cer-rzcgrq ol Qnejva, naq gnyx nobhg ubj terng Qnejva vf. The end.

All in all, the book had a lot of promise in the first part that it didn't live up to. Characters that had potential remained tantalizingly two-dimensional, never quite leaping off the page and coming to life. Everything felt a bit flat. But the first part was a Bildungsroman of two prodigies raising two child prodigies, and I rather enjoyed it, enough to say it's worth reading if you liked that aspect of Beggars in Spain (which I did).

It's funny, because in the 12 years I've known my partner, we've agreed on exactly three works of fiction that we didn't both hate. Two we liked, and the third is The Signature of All Things, which we liked the first half of and thought the second half was bizarre and unnecessary, and the characters just short of being fully realized. Usually we have radically different tastes, and either we both hate a book, or one of us hates it and the other doesn't. We've basically learned not to rec fiction to each other.

So I was surprised when she said one day, "I'm reading a book I think you'd like." When I realized what book it was, said, "Yeah, I've read it. The first half was good, but the second half goes totally off the rails. The ending is good, you'll like that part." Then when she made it further on in the book, she came to me and said, "WTAF was that???" and we proceeded to agree on everything, and then we talked about how weird it was that we were agreeing on a novel. :P

[cahn]

Huhhhhh. That's interesting. I did like that part of Beggars in Spain, so worth checking out!

What were the other two books you both like?

[mildred_of_midgard]

Then I would read the first part, skip to the part where she gets back to her science, and just accept that some weird shit happens in the middle that may be referred to at the end and that you may not get. If you do read it and decide to skip Weird Tahiti Interlude, I can direct you to the place near the end where it gets good again.

Both by Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon and The Rise and Fall of DODO. His other books we either both hate, are meh about, or I like but have advised her to give a miss based on what I know about her tastes.

DODO is *good*, though. I read it a few months ago and I've recommended it to at least 4 people so far. Stephenson has a co-author for this one, which makes a very clear difference to the quality.

[cahn]

D likes Cryptonomicon too, and told me I would probably like it but that -- if I remember correctly? -- it suffers from the usual Stephenson ending problem. I was never sure it would be worth reading to get to a Stephenson ending, but maybe it is. I've never heard of DODO. Does it have a proper ending?

[mildred_of_midgard]

DODO just came out. You won't believe it: it has a proper ending! Better, about 80% of the way through occurs one of my favorite things I've ever read and which I refuse to spoil for anyone. I'll just say that so far, everyone who's read it has immediately recognized it. My wife walked out to the kitchen where I was washing dishes, exclaimed, "The [Noun]s are [Verb]ing [Noun]!" and I was like, "Told you it was good!" She agreed that although she had been kind of indifferent up to that point, the payoff was worth the rather slow buildup.

Yes, Cryptonomicon is *notorious*. One of my friends who otherwise loved the book is still bitter that I didn't warn him about the ending when I recced it. He gave me a hard time about it for like a month. I told him DODO had a proper ending. :P But up until this year, Cryptonomicon was the only book my wife and I had both liked in 11 years of knowing each other. Despite the ending. I told my friend I'd forgotten about the ending, because when I'm rereading, I just skip that part! He still gave me many dirty virtual looks in chat, and I can't blame him.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Caroline by Sarah Miller is Little House on the Prairie (book, not series) from Ma's perspective.

[cahn]

Man. I feel like this could be a really depressing book.

[mildred_of_midgard]

It's about emotional repression, basically. Could be potentially very depressing depending on how you read it. Somewhat purple prosy, but I was glad I read it, and hoping the author puts out sequels for the other books in the series.

[mildred_of_midgard]

The parents don't get a ton of page time in Letters from Rifka, because the titular protagonist spends most of her time separated from her family and trying to reunite with them, and writing letters instead, but she spends a lot of time thinking about them and you get a sense of them anyway. It's a very very family-oriented book, maybe more so because she's missing them so much and constantly thinking about getting back to them. Plus there's her extended family that she's more permanently separated from but also missing and writing letters to.

It's also a 150-page YA book you can finish in an hour. Recommended if you liked Number the Stars. It's one of my favorite books.

[cahn]

This sounds great too -- family and epistolary are two things I really like, so, both of them together sounds like my jam.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Then definitely read it! I usually don't like epistolary, but this one works for me.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Lois Duncan's Season of the Two-Heart has 3 secondary characters who are mothers: the protagonist's (she's a high school senior) mother, grandmother, and the mother of the family she stays with as an au pair. It's half about family and becoming family, half about cultures. It's one of my favorite books, and you might like it. I reviewed it with spoilers here.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs Dunphrey has a mom who clearly loves her kids, but doesn't mom very well at all. Plus abusive dad. Not sure if that's what you're looking for. But it's a book I like a lot.

[cahn]

Yeah, I'll take that! Mostly I'm just sort of interested what's out there.

[alcanis_ivennil]

Not a biological mom, but Marilla Cuthbert really develops into an amazing one in Anne of Green Gables (she's kind of like McGonagall in that she appears strict at first but is actually a big softy and has a dry sense of humor). Watching the new adaptation now and crying a lot.

[cahn]

yessssss Marilla and Matthew!! <3

[alcanis_ivennil]

Matthew reminds me of my paternal grandfather

[cahn]

Aw! That's lovely. (And I forgot to say, adoptive parents TOTALLY COUNT. ABSOLUTELY.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Love Marilla and Matthew so much.

[skygiants]

I definitely rec Barbara Michaels' Witch, which I just read recently - Gothic starring a mom with a teenage daughter!

Another Barbara: Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane revolves on the question of whether the high-fantasy heroine will abandon her family to pursue various opportunities for power and magical knowledge and freedom. Her kids aren't present for very much of the book, but their existence is definitely significant.

The Blank Wall is a 1930s suspense novel about a housewife who discovers that her sweet, elderly father has accidentally murdered her daughter's no-good boyfriend and has to clean up the mess.

In Armistice, the sequel to Lara Elena Donnelly's Amberlough, the diplomat heroine's adolescent son is hostage to her good behavior and compliance with the regime she works for, and a big part of the plot revolves around the plan to rescue him.

The heroine of Amy Stewart's Girl Waits With Gun and sequels -- based-on-a-true-story adventures about a turn-of-the-century female deputy sheriff -- is deeply involved in the raising of her 'teen sister' who is actually her daughter.

In addition to Lifelode, Jo Walton's My Real Children is (unsurprisingly) full of moms!

Diana Wynne Jones' Aunt Maria has the heroine's mother as a very significant secondary character (iirc I think DWJ said that book was written as a pushback against writing parents off in magical adventures). Other good and interesting DWJ moms who play less of a role in the plot: Millie in Charmed Life, Lenina in Cart and Cwidder, and Mara in Dark Lord of Derkholm.

Kate Elliott's Court of Fives trilogy also has the heroine's mother as a major secondary character, with her own often-backscreened but hugely significant arc.

...I'm sure I can think of more but this is already a lot so I'm gonna call it for now!

[cahn]

These look great, I will have to look them up! Heh, interestingly I kept coming up with DWJ books without moms -- the most recent few I've (re)read didn't have them. ahaha, I saw your post about Witch and that did sound like something I would like quite a bit!

I have read Dragonsbane, and I remember liking it, but I think I was probably too young and the parental dilemmas probably were more boring than interesting at the time :)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I can't believe I didn't think of My Real Children! *facepalm*

Court of Fives sounds interesting, and I need to take a look. Thanks for the rec!

[dolorosa_12]

I'm seconding the recommendation for Kate Elliott's Court of Fives series. The point-of-view character's mother is a major character in her own right, and most of her arc consists of her role and skills as a mother, which are made heroic and stand her in good stead during a revolution against colonial oppression. Elliott had actually originally considered killing off the mother, but decided against it precisely because of the pervasiveness of the dead mother trope, and the fact that the mother survives shapes the story in interesting ways.

[cahn]

That's really interesting! I will have to look this up... I really relaly like the idea that mothering skills can be made heroic :D

[dolorosa_12]

I can't say much more without it being a spoiler, but if you do decide to read the series, you'll know what I mean when it happens.

The other book I've remembered that I don't think has been discussed yet is a children's book called The Girls in the Velvet Frame by Adèle Geras. It's historical fiction set in Jerusalem in the early twentieth century, and the titular girls are five sisters (aged between three and thirteen) living with their mother in genteel poverty. It's a book about sisters, mothers, and daughters (and there's also a fabulous aunt who features heavily), and 'women's work', and the way women get by and carve out little spaces for themselves where they can thrive. I first read it as a child more than twenty years ago and it's been one of my favourite books ever since.

[cahn]

Wow, that sounds like something I would really enjoy. Thanks!

[thistleingrey]

I wanted slightly more from the Court of Fives books, but I think it's attributable to their being YA and my being generally allergic to YA. :p (I liked Elliott's Spiritwalker books slightly more, since they are not YA and thus permitted to have much more worldbuilding weight. CoF has pretty solid worldbuilding for YA nonetheless, I admit.)

tl;dr seconding rec, go try and report back, pls :)

[cahn]

Heh, my other Kate Elliott experience was with Crown of Stars, which I really really liked actually and had fantastic worldbuilding, but it dragged a lot somewhere in the middle. (I seem to remember there was a... time travel sequence?? it was weird.) So YA is sounding like it might be a bit better from that perspective? :)

ALSO I WAS SO ANNOYED AT NEVER FINDING OUT WHAT THE DEAL WAS WITH ALAIN, so annoyed that years later it brings out all the capital letters in me. :)

[thistleingrey]

I haven't read Crown of Stars, unfortunately (somewhere there's an epub copy). The YAness makes it more condensed and thus tidier, certainly.

[thistleingrey]

I am a Bad Person who isn't looking at the rest of the comments yet (time time time), but the first book to mind is Sherwood Smith's Sasharia en Garde. Looking forward to returning for 37 comments after Reason's in bed tonight!

[cahn]

Hey, I have this one! (And actually now that I think about it, I think I bought it on your recommendation :) ) But it, er, has been sitting there on my to-read (digital) pile for quite a long time now. Maybe this will be a good push to actually do something about it.

[thistleingrey]

heh! I am probably predictable that way, yes. Interested in what you think if you do read.