Finding My Mother, Finding Myself: A Memoir of Three Women, in their own words:

Family myths and fantasies often obscure the facts about who we are and how we got here. "Find My Mother, Finding Myself" was going to be about the women who came before me, particularly the mother I never knew. It evolved into a docudrama about the daily lives that three women lived over half a century, complete with illness, romance, scandal, and yes, murder! I came to know Edna, Ide Belle, and Grace intimately through some two hundred letters written by the three women and their siblings. I came to understand, a little better, how my own personality traits formed. Hopefully, this living record will prove the value of knowing one's family history and how it can lead not only to self-knowledge, but to a powerful feeling of owning one's own place and purpose.