Memory Lane
My Daughter, My Mother by Annie Murray is a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me as the novel is set in 1984 Birmingham following two mothers and their daughters. This familiar landscape meant I ‘walked’ through the action being very familiar with the locations mentioned.
Hardships growing up meant the mothers had their secrets. Some things are just too horrible to talk about. One mother was a five year old evacuee in 1939, she suffered and hid her suffering inside. The other mother witnessed partition in India in 1947. So deep were the scars that silence was kept for years.
There is the difficult theme of domestic and child abuse. The victims kept silent controlled by fear and shame. Abuse is never the victims fault and they must seek help and not suffer in silence.