After immigrating from Lebanon to Haiti as a young girl, Merjan comes of age in an insular, conservative community, where it seems as though her sole escape is marriage. Striking a bargain with a young art dealer, she marries and dreams of becoming a painter, only to find her husband’s support tethered with expectations.
In the late 1970s, Merjan’s daughter Yvonne is a young woman on the cusp of a marriage of convenience. Though resentful of her mother, Yvonne dreams of establishing a Haitian art gallery in New York with the help of a well-connected older man—but her time there ends disastrously, creating a deep rift between her and her family as she starts one of her own.
In the present day, Yvonne’s daughter Eva is a student whose art draws inspiration from her grandmother Merjan’s largely undiscovered work. When Eva becomes unexpectedly pregnant, she moves back to her childhood home in Miami to sort out her ambivalent feelings, only to find her family upended by feuds. An intimate family saga, The Meaning of Daughter explores questions about maternal ambivalence, ambition, artmaking, and how desire resists gendered expectations.
“Alexia Nader renders each of her three protagonists in unflinching, intimate prose that asks the reader to bear witness to their humanity, their desires, and their imperfections. I couldn’t put it down.”—Naomi Krupitsky, New York Times bestselling author, The Family
“Telling the story of three generations, Nader’s debut novel does the important work of exploring the ways in which immigration and family intersect and conflict. These are powerful female characters who must fight for their personhood and their art. A beautiful work by a talented new voice in world literature.”—Nayomi Munaweera, author, What Lies Between Us
“The Meaning of Daughter is a beautiful contribution to the literature of our time. What Alexia Nader has done with these generations, these women in conversation with ego and passion, art and exile, self and family, is nothing short of transcendent. This is a book that sews the world together—Lebanon, Haiti, New York, Florida—with the thread of female want.”—Laleh Khadivi, author, A Good Country
“Spanning generations, this moving and riveting novel explores the power of art, the complicated bonds between mother and child, and the legacies that haunt us.”—Beth Nguyen, author, Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir of Motherhood and Absence
“In The Meaning of Daughter, Alexia Nader has spun a masterpiece depicting a multigenerational matriarchy. Reaching across silences and negative space, the daughter, mother, and grandmother of Nader’s breathtaking debut each contend with the tension between the lives they desire and the lives they are expected to pursue. Fueled by artistic ambition, filial obligation, and unbridled passion, The Meaning of Daughter is a compassionate exploration of love without possession.”—Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, author, Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare
