[In the following review, Schwartz offers positive assessment of A Mother and Two Daughters.]

Historically, novels by and about women have been taken less seriously than novels by men. This pattern is changing, however, as publishers seek to capitalize on the feminist market. A good many feminist writers deserve this new attention, and it is no longer possible to count on the bones of a single corset the women who write fiction of quality about women. Gail Godwin is one such writer, and in A Mother and Two Daughters she continues to explore the concept of independence from men, the theme of her previous novels.

The women of the title are educated Southerners. Nell Strickland, the mother, is adjusting to the loss of her well-to-do and devoted husband and experiencing independence for the first time in her life. She savors life on her own for a few years but then commits herself to a man unworthy of her and inferior to her first husband. Cate, the elder daughter, is known as the family radical for having married twice and engaging in the mildest of 1960s-style protests. A professor and a romantic, she pursues her quests for a university appointment and a perfect lover. Her sister Lydia, the mother of two sons, leaves her stodgy husband in search of the greater fulfillment she has heard is available to women willing to take risks. She completes her education, becomes the star of a television cooking program, and settles in with a bland Jewish podiatrist, whom she refuses to marry as a matter of principle.

Each of these women, like the novel's other female characters, feels the tug of autonomy. For most, however, the love of a man proves the greater need, and the women trade off at least part of their independence for a warm, attractive body with an authoritative voice. The remainder, like Cate, have a rougher time of it in their younger years—while their married peers take direction from self-assured men—but finally they succeed, unsoured by the compromises endured by the wives. Godwin's skill in portraying such varied women's attitudes toward life with and without men is remarkable.

Because Cate defines herself by her politics, hers is the more unusual story. Her socialism, however, makes her only a slightly more sympathetic character than Lydia, whose mean-spiritedness and greed have been codified into neoconservatism. Cate has neither time nor respect for people's feelings; like other well-born leftwingers, she fails to realize her sacrifices will not be appreciated or emulated by the less fortunate. Similarly, her public championing of individual "underdogs" both patronizes them and discomfits others whose lesser generosity she means to expose.

Godwin's knowledge covers a wide range of subjects, from investment banking to preparing the dead for the mortuary. It is a rich, if cluttered, book. There are too many extraneous figures and flashbacks, included at the expense of more telling portraits of the principals. In this, her most ambitious work, Godwin has for the first time left us without a truly memorable heroine. She has, for the first time as well, neatly tied up all the plots and subplots. In the 1984 epilogue, each character has not only found personal happiness but has done so in a way that benefits others.

The book might well have been issued as two or more novels, so complete and interesting is each of its tales. Nevertheless—or perhaps because of this—I found A Mother and Two Daughters nearly impossible to put down.