The daughter of esteemed writer Paula Fox and the mother of Courtney Love relates “the curse of the first-born daughter” that has haunted four generations of her family. As an adopted child, Linda Carroll created a magical world of her own, made up of dramatic adventures and the abiding fantasy that her real mother would come and take her away. When she finds herself pregnant at the age of eighteen, she is determined to have the perfect understanding with her child that she lacked with her adoptive mother. But readers will know better, for that baby grows up to be Courtney Love, desperately attention-seeking, deeply troubled, and one of the most talented women in rock. Even as a baby, Courtney is beset by mood swings that no doctor can explain or cure. Her dark moods and paranoia escalate as she grows up, driving mother and daughter apart. When Courtney has a daughter of her own, Linda finally decides to find her own biological mother, and end the estrangement of generations of first-born daughters. Her Mother’s Daughter is Linda Carroll’s story of self-discovery as an adopted daughter, a childlike hippie mother and a woman determined to find herself before finding her roots. Set apart from the typical celebrity memoir by Carroll’s gifted storytelling, Her Mother’s Daughter gives a fresh perspective on the elusive yet enduring connections between mothers and daughters, and reveals the true history of the wildly confabulatory Courtney Love. LINDA CARROLL was adopted at birth, raised in San Francisco and only later discovered that her biological mother is the writer Paula Fox. Married at eighteen, and twice more before she was thirty, she is now the mother of five grown children, including singer/songwriter Courtney Love. She is a therapist and writer and lives in Corvallis, Oregon with her husband of seventeen years. Advance Praise for Her Mother’s Daughter “Even if you start reading Linda Carroll's memoir out of curiosity about her famous daughter and biological mother, you'll keep reading to find out more about Linda herself.  This is no celebrity potboiler, but a fascinating, beautifully written work of narrative nonfiction; Carroll unites the intimate perspective of a psychologist, the contextual sense of a historian, and the clarity of a fine biographer in one absorbing package.  One of her central themes is what she calls the "curse of the first-born daughter," and it does seem that a tendency to live fascinating but difficult lives runs in these women's veins.  But so, apparently, does the talent of drawing, holding, and rewarding our attention.  Bravo, Linda Carroll!”   —Martha Beck, author of Expecting Adam and Finding Your Own North Star   “There is a delicious fictional quality to this true-life story that I  found riveting. In Carroll's deft telling, the book is a kind of  resurrection of a family….  I think I loved Her Mother's Daughter most for the devotion that Linda Carroll has for her unusual family through decades of separations and unconventional journeys.”   --Terry Ryan, author of  The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio   “Looking backward and forward in time, this haunting memoir tells the story of a young woman’s journey to finding herself, her birth mother, and her daughter, Courtney Love. The candor and power of these pages illuminates the difficulties of all mother-daughter relationships, but offers a rare glimpse into that elemental relationship when it is shadowed by the temperamental features of early-onset bipolar disorder. Linda Carroll has grit and grace, and writes like her mother’s daughter.”   —Demitri F. Papolos, M.D. and Janice Papolos, authors of The Bipolar Child Despite the suggestive subtitle, Carroll's memoir is far less tell-all than it is her personal recollections of growing up feeling alienated from her adoptive family, her peers, and her religion. Born with an inquisitive mind, Linda has trouble relating to her tightly wound adoptive mother, Louella, and her sexually abusive adoptive father, Jack. While her friendships with other girls are deep and stable, her relationships with men prove to be much more complicated. Carroll finds herself pregnant at 18 by a man she does not love, but she marries him and gives birth to a girl, Courtney. The marriage does not last, and Carroll spends the next decade in search of happiness, marrying twice again and going as far as New Zealand as her relationship with Courtney deteriorates. Years later, when Courtney is pregnant with her own child, Carroll finally seeks her own birth mother and is surprised to discover she is renowned writer Paula Fox. A thoughtful memoir of one woman's coming-of-age in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Advance Praise for Her Mother’s Daughter “Even if you start reading Linda Carroll's memoir out of curiosity about her famous daughter and biological mother, you'll keep reading to find out more about Linda hersel