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I finished reading this incredibly poignant novel more than two weeks ago. I’ve not had the time to sit and write a review. Life has gotten in the way. Some of it fortuitous, some of it rather tough. I sat down to look over my highlights this morning and found them difficult to sift through. I felt a bit melancholy in the process. I guess that’s a testament to the quality of writing, this lingering effect on me. Mother-daughter relationships � it can’t get much more fraught than that, at least from my own personal perspective. But my strength lies in having come to terms with that, so I’m not going to give this more mental space today. Susie Boyt, the author of this novel, expresses my feelings perfectly through her main character, Ruth:

“There is so much in life that doesn’t matter, so many things that hold you back, hem you in and throw you off the scent of what’s important.�

Ruth had a challenging childhood. Her father’s desertion, her mother’s heartache. Then Ruth has a child, Eleanor, and puts her whole heart into it. It’s hard to know the right balance between too much caring and too little. Can we fault anyone for that? Most of us simply do what we think best, based on our own past experiences. There’s no finger-pointing there. It’s fruitless. Eleanor ends up with a drug addiction. She eventually has her own child, Lily. Ruth steps in and raises Lily as her own. The relationship between them is touching. But I couldn’t help but wonder how all of this would shape Lily in the future. I could see Lily, even as a child, being the one responsible for healing. That’s often a great burden on a child, too. Ruth recognizes this.

“There was an idea that having Lily compensated me in various ways for losing Eleanor� But if Lily thought it was her job to patch me up, I would have doubly failed.�

Recognizing such pitfalls doesn’t mean that we won’t unwittingly step into them though, does it? This book pointed that out to me in a very thought-provoking, unsentimental way. The prose is literary, on the verge of distancing the reader from its characters. But not quite. For me, it was just the right amount of closeness versus distance to make it all very palpable. So much so that I’ve been reflecting on it a lot these past couple of weeks. It’s become a part of me. I’m in awe of Susie Boyt’s skill. She caught me off guard! The ending sections were phenomenal and evidence of the strength that women’s solidarity through times of grief can bring to the table.

Thanks to Antoinette for pointing me towards this novel. Cheers, my friend!

“Sometimes in life you have to let your heart and bones off the hook of yourself.�