You Be Mother: The debut novel from the author of Sorrow and Bliss

Product Information

This novel is hilarious, heartfelt, touching, saddening and infuriating (this one is for the Brush). This is the ultimate domestic drama. The storyline itself is somewhat anti-climatic but in the most amusing way (I truly mean this as a huge complement although it doesn’t sound one 😂). If you have read any of her other books you will hopefully understand what I mean by this. I guess what I am trying to say is that she takes something seemingly ordinary, and sprinkles her very own Meg Mason trademark glitter all over it so it shimmers and becomes brilliant. The first half was a gentle introduction to the characters. In London, Abi has become pregnant to her Australian boyfriend and he has now returned to home to complete his studies. All Abi has every wanted is a family but due to a tragic accident when she was younger, she and her mother have a very dysfunctional relationship. So when Stu says that he will support her and their child Jude if she comes to Australia, she jumps at the chance.

Whilst Stu finds it difficult to accept his fatherly responsibilities & quite frankly, acts like a total prat (easily aided by his doting mother, Elaine), Abi takes herself off to the local pool with her now born son, Jude. There she meets Phil, a widow whose adult children have all moved away. Together, they fill the holes in each other’s lives.

Abi embodies a new generation moving beyond these outdated cultural norms, while still nodding towards the struggles faced by those born into disadvantage – and the millennial gentrification of once working class urban areas. I was going to say, I’m excited for mason to write something that is not centred around motherhood, but actually this book is far more about friendship, the meaning of family, & filling the yawning gap your parents leave when you are a young adult (we love an inter-generational friendship). The beauty of Phil and Abi’s relationship felt so real, a mother figure without all the of expectation, past let downs, the intrusion of other family dynamics. Also covers loneliness and the liminal space between casual acquaintances and friends, imbued with longing, (which is so accurately portrayed, something I haven’t seen represented in text before - even though the same in romantic situations is the subject matter of every rom com ever).

Abi is a Social Work undergraduate, working part-time in Student Services to help out with the stretched family finances, when she falls pregnant to larger-than-life Australian architecture student Stu. They decide to make a go of it and Abi travels to Sydney with newborn Jude, where the small family is set up in Stu's parents' tiny investment property flat in Cremorne Point, next door to the Woolnough house. Meeting at the local swimming pool, recently widowed Phil (Phyllida) Woolnough is charmed by the lonely, jittery young British mum, and decides to take her under her capable wing. At first the need seems to come almost entirely from Abi's side - alone with her baby more than she should be, while Stu works at the local pub and continues his studies - but after a minor fall Phil comes to rely more and more on Abi for help and company. The relationship between the two women grows stronger and more equal, until a transgression threatens to destroy it. It is an incredibly funny novel, and one that’s enlivened, often, by a madcap energy. Yet it still manages to be sensitive and heartfelt, and to offer a nuanced portrayal of what it means to try to make amends and change, even when that involves ‘start[ing] again from nothing.’” THE GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA This is one of the best novels about marriage that I have read, and that is a large field…This is also one of the best novels about mental illness I have read…I am adding it to my list of the best novels of 2020, alongside Andrew O’Hagan’s MAYFLIES, Sofie Laguna’s INFINITE SPLENDOURS and Douglas Stuart’s SHUGGIE BAIN, which won the Booker Prize.” THE AUSTRALIAN

What do you do, when you find the perfect family, and it's not yours? A charming, funny and irresistible novel about families, friendship and tiny little white lies.