Grace and Mary
A moving story of memory, family and remembrance by ‘one of the best writers we have’ (Sunday Telegraph)
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
By 'quite simply one of the best writers we have' (Sunday Telegraph), a profoundly moving story spanning three generations.
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.
'This understated tale of three Cumbrian generations is one of his most heartfelt works' Mail on Sunday
'It's a novel that deserves to be read slowly, the details cherished' The Scotsman
'I loved it' Pat Barker
'It is a gem' Independent
Customer Reviews
Grace and Mary
This book has beautiful pathos, and yet is joyous, compelling and inspiring. Melvyn Bragg's use of language immerses the reader in the stark black and white landscape of moral judgements made with bias and narrow-mindedness, whilst painting a brightly coloured canvas of the lives of these two wonderfully courageous women; all observed and explored through the eyes and curiousity of their grandson and son, John. It is beautiful, a work of art, deeply healing, loving and yet cooled by the chill wind of unspoken grief, sadness and despair that can tear loved ones apart and prevent generations from being together.
The characters are compelling as John scrabbles to fit the jigsaw pieces of his mother and grandmother's lives together before it is too late and he loses his beloved mother to the ravages of Alzheimer's.
A modern classic... a joy to read. i highly recommend this book.