The authors in this collection examine and critique motherhood memoir, alongside the texts of their own lives, while seeking to transform mothering practice- highlighting revolutionary praxis within books, or, when none is available, creating new visions for social change. Many essays interrogate the tensions of maternal narrative-the negotiation of the historical location of writer and readers, narrative and linguistic constraints, and the slippery ground of memory-as well as the borders constructed between the "e;objective"e; scholar and the reader who engages with and identifies with texts through her intellect and her emotional being.