The Millstone
Book description
A celebration of the drama and intensity of the mother-child relationship, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.
It is the Swinging Sixties, and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienced at a time when sexual liberation is well on its way. She conceals her ignorance beneath a show…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Millstone as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This 1965 novel by English author Margaret Drabble follows protagonist and PhD student Rosamund as she becomes a single mother.
Educated, upper-middle-class Rosamund narrates with a quintessentially British and—for me—highly enjoyable blend of primness and humor. Fascinatingly and somewhat frustratingly, Rosamund keeps her pregnancy a secret from her daughter Octavia’s father, even after Octavia is born. She’s like a strange English Virgin Mary who studies Elizabethan sonnets and really doesn’t want to “put anyone out”.
Her story also offers an interesting glimpse into class issues in 1960s London and the way that experiences of pregnancy and motherhood can both transcend…
From Ashley's list on brainy women who are ambivalent about motherhood.
I first read The Millstone as a teenager and was surprised by it, as I imagined the baby – illegitimate, unplanned – was the millstone of the title. But the book is in fact a pean to motherhood, how it sharpens and enriches life, how love, unimagined, can burst up and bring joy. I re-read this book as part of my recent research – and found it wittier, cleverer and more poignant than I’d remembered. A true feminist classic of its time, and ours.
From Esther's list on Mother and Baby Homes and the unplanned babies.
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