How to Love Your Daughter

WINNER OF THE SAPIR PRIZE 2022

‘A mesmerising, disquieting tale of family estrangement … Unforgettable’ OBSERVER

‘A striking and memorable novel’ MEG WOLITZER

‘A stone-cold masterwork of psychological tension. Its final pages had me holding my breath’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘Hila Blum is my new favourite writer’ LOUISE KENNEDY

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What damage do we do in the blindness of love?

Thousands of miles from her home, a woman stands on a dark street, peeking through well-lit windows at two little girls. They are the daughters of her only daughter, the grandchildren she’s never met.

At the centre of this mesmerising story is the woman’s quest to understand how a relationship that began in bliss – a mother besotted with her only child – arrived at a point of such unfathomable distance. Weaving back and forth in time, she unravels memories and long-buried feelings, retracing the infinite acts of parental care, each so mundane and apparently benign, that together may have undermined what she most treasured.

With exquisite psychological precision, Blum traces the seemingly insignificant missteps and deceptions of family life, where it’s possible to cross the line between protectiveness and possession without even seeing it – and it’s uncertain whether, or how, we can find our way back.

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''When I read this book, I felt ... that a new and wonderful occurrence has transpired in Israeli literature'' Neri Livne, Haaretz