Name: Grandmothers
ISBN: 9780241371428

Salley Vickers

Grandmothers follows four grandmothers - Blanche, who can't seem to stop stealing things from the local pharmacy; Minna, who just wants a quiet life in her shepherd's hut, though the local children have other ideas; Cherry, who's adjusting to life in a care home; and Nan, whose favourite occupation is researching funerals - whose lives and grandchildren become unexpectedly entangled.

Grandmothers

The new novel from Salley Vickers, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Librarian 'Heart-warming... Grandmothers is a beautifully written and moving celebration of this love, too often unsung, that reaches out across the generations' The Times Grandmothers is the story of three very different women and their relationship with the younger generation: fiercely independent Nan, who leads a secret life as an award-winning poet when she is not teaching her grandson Billy how to lie; glamorous Blanche, deprived of the company of her beloved granddaughter Kitty by her hostile daughter-in-law, who finds solace in rebelliously taking to drink and shop lifting; and shy, bookish Minna who in the safety of shepherd's hut shares with her surrogate granddaughter Rose her passion for reading. The outlook of all three women subtly alters when through their encounters with each other they discover that the past is always with us and that we go on learning and changing until the very end. Grandmothers is a beautifully observed, sometimes subversive, often tender and elegiac novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Librarian. 'A fond portrait of what it is to love a child, both yours and not... a tonic for the overlooked modern grandmother' Sunday Times 'Vickers sees with a clear eye and writes with a light hand. She's a presence worth cherishing in the ranks of modern novelists' Philip Pullman

Moray Lyle McIntosh

Salley Vickers tackles families and, in particular grandmothers, and the challenges of relationships between multiple generations. Motherhood, and grandmotherhood, are not easy roles and while we may have clear ideas of the archetype the women who occupy them are far more complex and varied. See Nan, Minna and Blanche, three very different women struggling to maintain relationships with their grandchildren. The family ties are strained as they have been disappointed by, or have disappointed, their children but dote on their grandchildren. All three women are haunted by the regret of past mistakes. They are flawed but they have spirit. I found Minna's story particularly moving since she is not related to her faux-grandchild, the child of a neighbour. but has come to occupy that role of warmth and support and love so often associated with grandmothers. It's less subversive and challenging than The Librarian but an excellent read nonetheless. Salley Vickers is an excellent writer and her grasp of character and dialogue reminds me of the wonderful Elizabeth Taylor, as does her ability to write these quiet novels that are full of insight, wit and (often) heartache.