Pure Flame

A searing work of cultural memoir, Michelle Orange's Pure Flame explores the meaning of maternal legacy―in her own family and across a century of seismic change.

In a series of texts with her mother, Michelle Orange learned about the existence of Janis Jerome, who, it turns out, is one of her mother's many alter egos: the name used in a case study, eventually sold to the Harvard Business Review, about her mother's midlife choice to leave her husband and children to pursue career opportunities in a bigger city. A flashpoint in the lives of both mother and daughter, the decision forms the heart of a broader exploration of the impact of feminism on what Adrienne Rich called "the great unwritten story": that of the mother-daughter bond.

The death of Orange's maternal grandmother at nearly ninety-six and the fear that her mother's more "successful" life will not be as long bring new urgency to her questions about the woman whose...