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Title: The Mothers
Author: Rod Jones
Narrator: Di Adams
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
Language: English
Release date: 04-07-16
Publisher: Wavesound Audio
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
In 1917, while the world is at war, Alma falls pregnant, and her daughter, Molly, is born in secret.
In 1952, Anna enters a Salvation Army home for unmarried mothers, determined to keep her baby.
In 1975, Cathy is living with David, determined not to get married, but when she falls pregnant a new chapter is added to this family story.
Interweaving the intimate lives of three generations of Australian women, this is a tale about secrets, motherhood, adoption and the untold stories that shape us.
Critic Reviews:
"Quietly moving.... If you like Colm Toíbín's work, I'm sure you will love this book." (Readings)
"Beautifully written and deeply poignant. One of the most satisfying Australian novels Ive read in years." (Alex Miller, Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning author of The Ancestor Game)
Members Reviews:
Simply Brilliant
This novel is simple in the way that all the best things are simple AFTER they have been done or discovered. This author takes one into the minds and motivations of a group of complex and compelling characters.
Four Stars
Thoroughly enjoyable
The Mothers by Rod Jones
I liked the characters and the sense of place and historical events. David let the book down, not believable. Annie
Just Not A Lot Here
Rod Jones' The Mothers is set in Australia over the course of several generations. It begins with Alma, who gets pregnant young and rushes into marriage with a man she barely knows. By the time their second child is a toddler, the couple is estranged, and when her husband brings home his paramour, Alma flees. She has nowhere to go, but is taken in by a young man about her age and his mother, who he still lives with. The two eventually conceive a child of their own, but he doesn't want to marry her and cuts off his support of their daughter, Molly, abruptly during her youth. Broke and desperate, Alma sends Molly to live in an orphanage for a time, but eventually reclaims her...and her father makes a surprise reappearance in her life. Molly grows up and makes a good marriage of her own, but finds herself unable to get pregnant.
Meanwhile, Anna is a teenage mother sent a religious home for unwed mothers, where she is convinced to give up her baby son for adoption despite her desperate desire to keep him. That son is adopted by Molly and named David, and spoiled as Molly tries to work through her own complicated childhood legacy. David, in turn, grows up to get his girlfriend Caroline pregnant, and even though he stays with her, he doesn't exactly do right by her. When David's older and has established his family, he wants to meet his birth mother, and she has complicated feelings about a reunion.
This book is hard to write about because there's not a lot there. The themes he riffs on, of the difficult choices women have to make around motherhood and the way mothers raise their children playing out in how they deal with their own parenthood, aren't new, and he doesn't do anything special with them. It does strike me as strange that this book was written by a man...the emotional costs of motherhood seem like a topic much more germane to a female experience. Not that it's written poorly or with a hamhanded treatment of the subject...it's fine if completely unremarkable, for the most part, but it made me wonder about Jones' own feelings about his mother.
