What happens when you discover that the person you admire, love and trust most of all has secretly discredited your integrity for most of your life--even on their deathbed? Rebecca Painter's frank, far-flung and often funny exploration of a painful mother-daughter relationship is for anyone challenged by hidden as well as open assaults on their character.

To understand and heal her deep-rooted/lifelong trauma, the author transports readers across the Pacific to her mother's youth in the outback of 1920s New Zealand, and Rachel's fateful voyage to the Pacific Northwest in 1939. Did a telegraph error ruin her engagement to the man she called the love of her life? Why would she quickly marry an American cult leader, Rebecca's father, whose paranormal influence lingers after his untimely death?

We witness the family's survival struggles, and Rebecca's challenges as an outsider attending an elite women's college--which resemble the barriers her mother faced in the British class system. Rebecca's dream of a scholarly career is deferred, but her prayers are answered by the chance to care for and be reconciled with her dying mother.

[LOVE] RACHEL speaks of believable miracles, and--despite decades of soul-wrenching negative judgments--how personal integrity can be defended and empowered from within.

"A gripping, haunting journey of forgiveness. Despite her mother's harsh judgments, Rebecca learns to love herself, have compassion for her mother...and comes to terms with their demons. Her memoir is a lyrical and intelligent page-turner and an inspiration."

--Carole Mallory, actress, supermodel, author of Picasso's Ghost, Loving Mailer, and Flash

"Rebecca Painter's wonderful memoir examines the compelling, dramatic and puzzling events of her mother's life, in her struggle to understand their fraught relationship.... As a daughter, I consider this to be more than just a great story. It is a truly important read about human relations."

--Miriam Katin, artist, author of award-winning illustrated memoir We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go

"A daringly honest, amazing account of a complex, always fascinating relationship."

-- Lee J. Strauss, author of The First Language and Toward a Biology of Culture