Becoming Herself A mother and daughter finds her own identity. BY KIM SMITH Her Mother's Daughter: A Memoir of the Mother I Never Knew and of My Daughter, Courtney Love, by Linda Carroll. Doubleday, 2005. Hardcover, $24.95 For years, publishers have wanted Linda Carroll to write her story, always wanting a tell-all, juicy dish on her daughter, Courtney Love. Carroll refused until one day she woke up and decided it was time. "I finally had gotten to a place where I could step back from being Courtney's mother enough to be able to see my own life," she said. "I knew I could never write a story about her — that's not mine to do." Three years ago the Corvallis resident pieced together her memories saved through letters and journal writings into her recently released memoir. Yes, Carroll is the daughter of well-known author Paula Fox and mother to famous rock star and actor Courtney Love, wife of the late rocker Kurt Cobain. But the story that runs through this book is not a salacious, gossip-laden tale. It's raw, direct and deeply sincere with an unabashed vulnerability, genuine in its candor as Carroll threads together detailed memories into a rhythm of anecdotes that compel the reader to turn each page. It reads like an intimate conversation filled with modest secrets. She said her memoir "is about how we become who we are," and that her story is, "like everyone's story except that it has a lot of drama in it." Her story of self-discovery recounts the significant passages of her coming of age. Her search for familial and spiritual identity takes her through Catholic schools and LSD, young love and divorce, motherhood and friendship, and from San Francisco to New Zealand. Carroll also brilliantly captures the essence of the eras in which she lived with a detailed poignancy that places her life within a larger historical framework. Her past is filled with challenging circumstances beginning with her detached relationship to her adopted parents. Then she is faced with young motherhood. Problems with Courtney begin at an early age, marriages disintegrate and loved ones die. "I think that we come as we are, and then we get better or worse by circumstances," Carroll said. "But we don't get made." The book opens with a phone conversation with Courtney that changed Carroll's life and made her realize that she must find her own biological roots. "I thought you'd like to know, I'm three months pregnant," Courtney said. "I just married a prince. He's the biggest rock star in the world." The book closes with the incredible and touching reunion with her mother, Paula Fox. The 282 pages in between tell the story of how Carroll fully became both daughter and mother, finding her own compelling identity between two amazing women.
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