Alice Fisher 

Stories of Motherhood, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell – review

A US-heavy anthology about motherhood has personal resonance for Alice Fisher
  
  

baby looking over mother's shoulder
'Basic biology aside, motherhood is completely shaped by society and it would have been good to see more countries represented.' Photograph: Tara Moore/cultura/Corbis Photograph: Tara Moore/cultura/Corbis

If your mother isn't the sort to be appeased by chocolates or a bunch of daffs, turn to Everyman's Library for Mothering Sunday. The venerable imprint has steadily built a good list of themed short story anthologies in recent years – ghost tales, detective, even golf – all hard-backed and prettily packaged. This timely release is a collection dedicated to motherhood.

In truth, I'm not sure if I'm the best person to review this or the worst. My mother is losing her battle with Alzheimer's and in recent months has forgotten who I am. She's here but gone and I'll never get the chance to properly say goodbye. Meanwhile I'm six months into being a mother myself, so I'm raw from lack of sleep and very unforgiving.

This state certainly undermined my enjoyment of Lydia Davis's "What You Learn About the Baby". Her descriptions of how life changes and the emotions you experience when caring for an infant ("Don't expect to finish anything", "Impatience") are daily conversation for anyone responsible for a child, though Davis is more eloquent and less sweary than the parents I hang out with.

Two stories told from young children's perspectives were far more effective and affecting. Ernest J Gaines's "The Sky Is Gray" is set in segregated Louisana and describes a poor black boy's trip to the dentist. It's stuffed with politics, anger and pride, yet never loses the authentic naive voice. Elizabeth Bowen's "Coming Home" features a very different child – a privileged one in 20s Britain – but again feels authentic. It perfectly captures the polarised moods of a 12-year-old girl.

Bowen's voice was very welcome in this collection. The range is good, including stories written over 100 years ago (Willa Cather's "The Burglar's Christmas") as well as modern work, and they cover all aspects of the mother bond, but the anthology feels very American; a little saccharine and samey. The only featured authors other than Bowen who hail from outside the US are Colm Tóibín (whose "One Minus One", about the death of his mother, is bleak and brilliant), Alice Munro and Anita Desai. Basic biology aside, motherhood is completely shaped by society and it would have been good to see more cultures represented.

My favourite story was Munro's "My Mother's Dream". It's no great insight to say how wonderful her writing is, but that wasn't the reason I loved it. Something about the tale of a young widow stuck with eccentric relatives and the antic events that lead to her newborn's brush with death reminded me of my own mother. The story sounded like an anecdote she'd tell from her own unconventional childhood and I know she would thoroughly enjoy reading it. If only she could still read.

I shut this book with my head filled with thoughts of my own mother, so it certainly achieved its aim. I would have liked more variety, but that Munro story will stay with me long after chocolates would have been digested and flowers withered away.

 

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