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Book Summary and Reviews of Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd

Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd

Traveling with Pomegranates

A Mother-Daughter Story

by Sue Monk Kidd

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  • Sep 2009, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Sue Monk Kidd has touched millions of readers with her novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair and with her acclaimed nonfiction. In this intimate dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a fifty-something and a twenty-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other.

Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter.

A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Although the 'maiden-mother-crone' symbolism grows repetitive and forced, their's is a moving journey." - Publishers Weekly

"A touching rapprochement between mother and daughter, but much of the writing is murky and both narratives sound curiously alike - won't deter the many fans of Mom, however." - Library Journal

This information about Traveling with Pomegranates was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Martha Randall Black

Themes that touch us all
One theme after another struck a chord within me as I read this book - aging, creativity, spirituality, loss, motherhood...again and again a single, well-crafted thought brought tears to my eyes. While I identify primarily with the mid-life Sue, I clearly remember my younger self in Ann's chapters, and can see my own daughter in her as well. It was wonderful to have real issues and emotions presented so succinctly and yet so deeply.

Dagmar Rodriguez

It didn't get through me.
As a sixteen-year old I couldn't relate much with Sue, I tried to bring up my empathetic side to connect with her but it didn't fully work. However, I did relate to Ann's side of the book; just like her, I'm struggling to find my necessary fire and reading her own quest it's helping me find my way in life.

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Author Information

Sue Monk Kidd Author Biography

Sue Monk Kidd was raised in the small town of Sylvester, Georgia, a place that deeply influenced the writing of her first novel The Secret Life of Bees. She graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970 and later took creative writing courses at Emory University and Anderson College, as well as studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and other writers conferences. In 2016, TCU conferred on her an honorary doctor of letters degree.

Her book When the Heart Waits, published by Harper SanFrancisco in 1990 has become a touchstone on contemplative spirituality. In 1996, Harper published The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, describing Kidd's journey into feminist theology, a memoir that had a groundbreaking effect within religious circles.

In her forties, Kidd turned her attention to writing ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Sue Monk Kidd's Website

Other books by Sue Monk Kidd at BookBrowse
  • The Secret Life of Bees jacket
  • The Mermaid Chair jacket
  • The Invention of Wings jacket

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