Letter to My Daughter
Publisher Ballantine, February 16, 2010
When Liz runs away from her Baton Rouge home on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, her guilt-ridden mother, Laura, writes her a letter about her own adolescence, hoping to give Liz insight into her mother as a woman who has enough of her own precarious history to understand her daughter. In her painfully candid confession, Laura reveals the reasons her parents sent her away to a strict Catholic boarding school, how her forbidden love affair with a boy from the wrong part of town who then left to fight in Vietnam ended in tragedy, and finally, the meaning of the enigmatic tattoo she wears below her right hip. In recounting Laura’s story, Bishop brilliantly captures a very specific time and place as well as the incredibly universal themes of family, love, betrayal, and the anguish of adolescence.
“George Bishop writes “Letter to My Daughter” with a keen eye, an open heart and a lot of love. This mother’s letter to her fifteen year old daughter will stay
with you long after you’ve put it down. I am sure I will return to it again as a cautionary tale and a parable of forgiveness. I highly recommend it.”
— Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of Lucia, Lucia and Very Valentine
“George Bishop has brilliantly conceived an unforgettable story about the angst of adolescence, the complexities of family relationships, and the depth of a mother’s love for her daughter. Written with stunning clarity and compassion, Letter to My Daughter fills the heart. ”
–Bev Marshall, author of Walking Through Shadows and Right as Rain
“Letter to my Daughter encompasses all the love and hope and fear of being both a parent and a child. Bishop’s story, this letter from a mother, will break your heart even as it reminds you of the resiliency of love.”
— Judy Merrill Larsen, author of All the Numbers
“Before you sit down to read this book, put aside a few hours. Or else, you’ll miss some appointments. You will be pulled into every paragraph of Letter to My Daughter, especially if you’ve ever been a parent or a teenager.”
— Clyde Edgerton, author of The Bible Salesman
“The first thought you have when you read George Bishop’s novel, Letter to My Daughter, is; how did a man manage to nail the relationship between a mother and a daughter so flawlessly? But that’s not the only magic Mr. Bishop pulls off. He’s also one of those rare writers who can write about the heart –and heartbreak– without sugarcoating, yet you feel uplifted at the end. In his skillful hands, reality is a cause for hope, first love is a first step on life’s journey, and youthful emotions are to be forever cherished. If you have a mom or a daughter — or a son or a dad — share this great read with them.”
— Louise Shaeffer, author of Serendipity
“George Bishop is very good at doing a difficult thing. He dares to write about the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship. He is alert to the feeling of helpless love in a mother, and the stumbling way she tries to speak to her absent daughter. The story, told through a letter, is compelling and heartfelt.”
— Elizabeth Cox, author of Slow Moon
“In George Bishop’s spare and powerful Letter to My Daughter, a mother confesses with startling honesty a life of passion and loss and survival. Meant as an apology to her runaway child, it is both heartbreaking and heart healing.”
–John Biguenet, author of Oyster and The Torturer’s Apprentice
“Letter to My Daughter is a first novel of immense power. It makes George Bishop a novelist to keep your eye on. Reading this book as a father of five daughters, I wish I’d written a letter to my own girls, describing my own failures and dilemmas as an American teenager.”
— Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides and South of Broad
