FICTION
The Women They Made
Three generations of women living in the aftermath of a very public crime, and what keeps getting passed down even when everyone is trying to do better.
The Women They Made follows three generations of women across roughly thirty years as each tries, in her own way, to live with what came before her.
Mary kills her stepfather to stop the abuse of her daughter, Jenni, and spends much of her adult life in prison. Jenni is raised by her grandmother, Dot, growing up between the family that remains and the mother she visits behind prison walls.
Years later, Jenni has built a life and career of her own. She becomes a prosecutor, a wife, and a mother, determined not to repeat the patterns that shaped her childhood.
Understanding a pattern, however, does not always keep us from repeating it.
WHAT GETS PASSED DOWN
At its heart, The Women They Made is about inheritance that has nothing to do with money.
It is about what families teach us without meaning to.
What daughters learn from mothers.
What happens when love, protection, anger, shame, loyalty, and violence become tangled together.
Dot, Mary, and Jenni each believe she is responding to the circumstances in front of her. Each loves imperfectly. Each makes choices shaped by what she has survived and what she thinks she understands.
And each leaves something for the next generation to carry.
THE QUESTIONS UNDERNEATH IT
How much of who we become belongs to us?
How much was handed to us before we were old enough to recognize it?
What does it mean to protect someone?
Can understanding the past keep us from repeating it?
And what happens when people who are trying to do better discover that intention is not always enough?
The Women They Made is a story about family, consequence, survival, and the complicated work of seeing clearly.