Mothering Sunday
A Romance
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3.1 • 10 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Jane Fairchild, orphaned at birth, has worked as a maid at an English country estate since she was sixteen. And for almost all of those years, she has been the secret lover of Paul Sheringham, the scion of the estate next door. On an unseasonably warm March afternoon, when all the servants have been let off work for the day in order to pay their annual visits to their families, Jane and Paul will make love for the last time in Paul's own bedroom—though not, as Jane believes, because Paul is about to be married.
The events of the day will alter Jane's life forever. As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane, about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees and remembers, deepens with every beautifully wrought moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery and, through her, Graham Swift has created an emotionally soaring and deeply affecting work of fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1924, in an England still reeling from the loss of young men to the Great War, this elegiac tale offers a haunting portrait of lives in a world in transition. Its events unfold from the viewpoint of Jane Fairchild, a 22-year-old maid at the Berkshire estate Beechwood. On the titular day a Sunday before Easter that the aristocracy traditionally give their help off to visit their families Jane bikes to neighboring Upleigh for a final fling with Paul Sheringham, her wealthy lover for the past five years, who is soon to marry into another blue blood family. No one can anticipate that the day will end abruptly with a devastating tragedy and, for Jane, an epiphany that marks the start of a future as rich and rewarding as it is unforeseen. The story lingers on the immediate aftermath of Jane and Paul's tryst and Swift (England and Other Stories) invests its every detail the order in which Paul hastily dons formal attire to lunch with his fianc and their families, the casualness with which Jane explores his estate home in the nude with gravity and symbolic weight. His depiction of a fragile caste clinging to traditions that define their sense of noblesse oblige while struggling to bear the era's crushing burden of "accumulated loss and grief" is poignant and moving as is his intimation of a brilliant personal destiny that rises from the ashes of a tragically bygone social order.
Customer Reviews
Wow!
This is the first book I have read from this author. I opened the first page and never stopped until the end. The story was very good but the writing was so beautiful and what kept me going. I am going to work my way through other works by this author.