This incisive study of the fiction of Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Morrison uses cutting-edge cultural and literary theory to examine the knotted mother daughter relations that form the thematic basis of the texts examined. Using both close reading and contextualization, the analyses are focused through issues of race and contemporary theorizing of whiteness and trauma. This study is a contribution to the broad fields of literary criticism, feminist theory and whiteness studies.