Mrs. Lisbon

‘The Virgin Suicides,’ by Jeffrey Eugenides

The five Lisbon daughters live “under the thumb of their domineering mother,” a woman “who never allows them to date, and who insists they wear baggy, ridiculous clothes. Though their ineffectual father seems vaguely sympathetic to their plight, he never stands up to their tyrannical mother.” When one of them breaks curfew, “the girls are permanently grounded. They are pulled out of school and locked in the house.”

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Helen

‘Housekeeping,’ by Marilynne Robinson

Ruth and Lucille, raised by a succession of indifferent relatives, “were quite small when their mother left them, with a box of graham crackers, on the porch in Fingerbone. ‘At last,’ Ruth says, ‘we slid from her lap like one of those magazines full of responsible opinion about discipline and balanced meals.’”

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Mary

‘Push,’ by Sapphire

“At the age of 16, Claireece, or ‘Precious’ as she calls herself, has already had two children by the man she knows as her father. Her mother has not only allowed these rapes to occur, but also beats Precious for stealing her man. She, too, sexually abuses Precious, and treats her as a maidservant around the house.”

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