Like Mother, Like Daughter

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

Like Mother, Like Daughter is set in New York City. The various New York neighborhoods are used both as a shorthand to describe the characters and to highlight their distance from one another, particularly in the case of Katrina and Cleo McHugh. Katrina lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Once known for being a hipster neighborhood, Park Slope has transformed in recent years into a neighborhood for liberal, upper-middle-class to wealthy professionals. Katrina is the epitome of this demographic; her clothes, which are expensive but understated, reflect this cultural imprint, most notably her gray canvas Chloé flats that do not draw attention to themselves but retail for around $700. Cleo describes her as “‘working Park Slope mom’ through and through” (175), and to those familiar with the neighborhood, this reference develops Katrina’s character.

Cleo attends New York University in Manhattan. Her dorm is located on Washington Square Park. Katrina sits in this park to surveille her daughter. Although they live in different areas of the city, Cleo is still easily accessible with a short subway ride. This illustrates that Cleo does not live that far away and explains how Katrina is easily able to spend so much time staking out Cleo’s dorm.