Gail Godwin has been quoted in Contemporary Authors as objecting to the "Fad" for analyzing novels from a sociological or political point of view, and she also has no desire to be classified as a feminist novelist, yet all her works lend themselves superbly to analysis of contemporary "relevant" issues. One of the main characters in A Mother and Two Daughters, Lydia, has left her marriage and returned to school. Her doubts and growing confidence are typical emotions experienced by numerous women who change their lifestyles. Lydia, who eventually becomes a successful and independent television personality, is an outstanding "role model." But so is her mother, from an earlier generation, a nurse who also has made a strong identity for herself. The novel embraces about sixty years of women's changing status and choices, with two clear successes and the equivocal case of Cate, the drifting, complaining...