As a teenager in the 1970s, Sarah is forced to leave her home in upstate New York to accompany a missionary to Idaho. When she falls pregnant, she is dispatched to relatives in Sydney, who place her in a home for unmarried mothers. Years later her daughter, Bet, pieces together her mother's life story, hoping to understand her better. As she learns more about Sarah's past, Bet struggles to come to terms with her own history and identity, yet is determined to make peace with Sarah's choices before it's too late. Lucy Neave's moving and deeply personal novel follows three generations of one family and questions what we can ever truly know of our parents' early lives, even as their experiences weave invisibly into our identities and destinies.
"'In this powerful novel the narrator honours her lost mother by tracing her journey from beguiled girl to confident activist, in the process arriving at an understanding of her own place in the world. I was spellbound.'"
Brenda Walker
"'Astute, tender and wise: a novel of damage, recovery and the tangle of the mother-daughter knot.'"
Gail Jones
"'A profound portrait of the mother-child relationship, complex, heart-wrenching and suffused with an ineffable grace. Neave asks: what does it mean to be a woman? Her answer is both subtle and surprising.'"
