KATE MARTIN
BOOKS TO LIVE BY●Mariella Frostrup
A deep dive into the
dark side of motherhood
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MARIELLA
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on requestQ
Having had an abusive childhood, I get sick of
the narrative of motherhood changing people
for the better and the unbreakable bond of
mother and daughter, as well as reconciliation
and forgiveness always being possible in the
fullness of time. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes
mothers never find their maternal side and there is
no happy ending. Can you recommend books that
subvert the motherhood narrative and reflect the
reality and diversity of experience?A
Interestingly, some of the most unredeemed
portraits of maternal love come from sons. From
Philip Roth to John Updike, mothers get blamed
for everything from dead babies to weak men. I’m
thinking Janice Angstrom in Updike’s Rabbit, Run
— often found “highball in hand, glued to the television
set” — who drunkenly allows her baby girl to drown in
the bath. At the other end of the scale there’s Sophie in
Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, who exists solely to protect
her son from exposure to the world — be it from peopleoutside her religious circle or from maturity itself.
But those seem to me caricatures of maternal failure
compared with the myriad versions of how mothers
and daughters connect and conflict.
Bad mothering is, like many human interactions,
a multi-shaded and subjective area, and there’s no
abusive adult, on any level of the scale, who hasn’t
suffered themselves. Understanding why people
act the way they do doesn’t excuse their behaviour,
but certainly helps recovery by putting it into some
context. One of my favourite novels, Unless by Carol
Shields, features a mother who is desperate to discover
why her previously happy daughter now sits on a street
corner with a sign reading simply “Goodness”. It doesn’t
fit your criteria, but I’m mentioning it here — along with
the psychotherapist Julia Samuel’s insightful new book,
Every Family Has a Story — because rather than just
confirming what we already think, reading can be
helpful to move us on from where we are stuck.
Then again, as you point out, sometimes happy
endings just aren’t possible nWhite Oleander
Janet Fitch
Virago, £10.99
We join Astrid on a picaresque
journey through the
Californian foster-care system,
after her own mother is jailed
for murdering her boyfriend.
But the teenager can’t escape
her mother’s mythic status in
her life or the sense that she
will never measure up to her
beauty and fearlessness.
A disturbing tale that shows
how damage lasts long after
the perpetrator is taken away.Anywhere but Here
Mona Simpson
Bloomsbury, available
second-hand
One of the most acutely
observed investigations of the
mother-daughter relationship
I’ve read. “Strangers always
love my mother,” Ann says.
“And even if you hate her ...
even if she’s ruining your life,
there’s something about her ...
some power ... And when she
dies, the world will be flat, too
simple, reasonable, too fair.”
A knockout blow to mothering!A Life’s Work
Rachel Cusk
Faber, £9.99
Exploding the myth that
mothering should come
naturally to women,
Cusk’s memoir explores
the frustration, the sleep
deprivation, the sense of
isolation and anger that new
motherhood can bring. It’s a
relief to find such sentiments
given oxygen rather than
buried under a bed of cosy
clichés and misplaced
expectations.Shuggie Bain
Douglas Stuart
Picador, £8.99
This Booker prizewinner
acutely highlights the agonies
of a child raised (or abandoned
to raise themselves) by a
substance-abusing single
mum. Tough but compulsive
reading. As you requested,
there are no epiphanies,
unless you count the narrator’s
ability to survive an entirely
elusive childhood with the
possibility of breaking the
abusive chain.The Sunday Times Magazine • 51