She named five favorite literary mothers for the Telegraph, including:Toni Morrison’s Beloved tells the tale of a slave woman. She can give birth to children but will never have any rights over them. The pain a woman goes through when her most basic right to motherhood is denied to her is told through violence and love, cruelty and compassion, interwoven in this tale as in life and history.Read about the other mothers on the list.
Beloved also appears on Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten great books you didn't know were science fiction or fantasy, Peter Dimock's top ten list of books that challenge what we think we know as "history", Stuart Evers's top ten list of homes in literature, David W. Blight's list of five outstanding novels on the Civil War era, John Mullan's list of ten of the best births in literature, Kit Whitfield's top ten list of genre-defying novels, and at the top of one list of contenders for the title of the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years.
Also see: the ten best fictional mothers; the ten worst mothers in books; Elizabeth Lowry's five best books about mothers of many sorts; and the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on mothers.
--Marshal Zeringue
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