John visits his ageing mother Mary in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore up her memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs and questions about the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town.
But he finds that most of all it is her own mother she longs for - Grace, the mother she barely knew. John sets out to recreate their buried family history, delving into the secrets and silences of Mary's fractured childhood as he imagines the life of her spirited mother.
Reaching from the late 19th century to the present, this becomes a deeply moving, reflective elegy on three generations linked by a chain of love, loss, and courage.
- ISBN10 1444818732
- ISBN13 9781444818734
- Publish Date 1 March 2014 (first published 9 May 2013)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 31 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher F A Thorpe (Publishers)
- Imprint Ulverscroft Ltd
- Edition Large type / large print edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 272
- Language English