282. Tracy Clark-Flory: "My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past"

282. Tracy Clark-Flory: "My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past"

May 5, 2026 · 43 min · Season 17

About this episode

Tracy Clark-Flory discusses her memoir exploring her family's past and its impact on her identity.

Tracy Clark-Flory is a journalist, essayist, and author of the new memoir My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past , which Kirkus calls “powerful,” “deeply researched,” “lyrically written,” and “moving.” New York Times bestselling author Peggy Orenstein says Clark-Flory “connects the dots between her own life, the reader’s, and the larger culture, turning the family story of a pregnant girl caught by the social forces of her time—around gender, race, class—into the story of all women: who we are as daughters, how we carry the relationships to our mothers long after they are gone, and how we are shaped, generationally, by the limits on our personal, sexual, and reproductive freedom.” She’s also the author of the previous book Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey into the Heart of Desire, an NPR Best Book of the Year. She has written for Cosmopolitan, The Cut, Elle, Esquire, Marie Claire, Glamour, The Guardian, The Washington Post, WIRED, Women’s Health, and many others. Previously, she was a senior staff writer at Jezebel and a staff writer at Salon. She writes a weekly newsletter and co-hosts Dire Straights, a feminist podcast critiquing hetero love, sex…

People in this episode

Host: Jennifer Dyan Ghoston

Guest: Tracy Clark-Flory

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cosmopolitan, The Cut, Elle, Esquire, Marie Claire, Glamour, The Guardian, The Washington Post, WIRED, Women’s Health

Books & works: My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past, Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey into the Heart of Desire

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