Cuttings explores a timeless relationship-a mother and daughter-from meditations on childhood, to adolescence and young adulthood, and finally toward marriage and contemplating motherhood. The mother's presence, a haunting in fits and bursts, pushes the daughter to reflect on what she was taught, and how she has grown. Accepting who she desires to become, yet resisting that difficult inheritance, the daughter must reckon with her mother's words, body and spirit. With an eye toward grace, Hannah Dow brilliantly considers what it means to implicate, to blame, to forgive.