Join Sarah Moss to talk about our May Book of the Month, NIGHT WAKING, on Wed 30 May 9-10pm

[TillyBookClub]

May's Book of the Month is one of the best books on motherhood I've read for ages. Like Helen Simpson in Hey Yeah Right Get a Life, Sarah Moss is one of those authors that just nails it. This is a book you'll be passing on to everyone around you, and should win prizes for its author.

Anna Cassingham (aka Dr Bennet) is an Oxford Research Fellow writing a history book. Only she isn't, because she is also trying to cope with the incessant interruptions, questions and demands of precocious, death-obsessed, seven year old Raph and two year old Moth, who has yet to sleep through the night. Husband Giles, owner of the tiny island of Colsay where they have come to live for the summer, is keen on homemade bread and recycling, less keen on childcare and clean surfaces. Whilst planting a tree one day, the family discover a baby's skeleton, which sets Anna (and the police) on a papertrail of stories that are interlinked with the island's history and Giles's family. The dialogue is sharp and funny, the observations are lively and true to life. Above all, the tension between the visceral love for your family and the need for self-preservation is brilliantly explored.

Find out more on the book of the month page, and you can check out Sarah's website for videos, reviews and more details on the people and places that inspired the book.

Granta have given us 50 copies to give away to Mumsnetters - to claim yours go to the book of the month page and fill in your details. We'll post here when all the copies have gone. If you're not lucky enough to bag one of the free books, you can always get your paperback or Kindle version here.

We are delighted that Sarah will be joining us to chat about NIGHT WAKING, motherhood and her writing career on Wednesday 30 May, 9-10pm. Hope you can join us then...

[Hullygully]

Which of us can say...

[SarahMoss1596]

Yes. I was cheered when one early reader, who shall remain nameless, said 'oh, but we've all been there.'

[SarahMoss1596]

@hippy99

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I understand Anna's love for her children, but how they still drive her to the edge at times.
I am interested in Judith's character. She is very focused on outward appearances and very snobbish with negative beliefs. We do get glimpses of her concern/love for Zoe even though she doesn't show it very well. The book implies it is the stress of Judith that is the cause of Zoe's eating issues. Is this the case?
Do you think it is the breakdown of Judith's relationships with Zoe and Brian plus a lack of career/focus which has turned her to alcohol? I hope their story ends well!
Thanks for a great book. My mind is reeling now it has ended.

I don?t think any mental illness has such direct cause and effect. Judith seems to have messed things up more conclusively than Anna has, despite staying at home and being perfectionist about housework.

[Hullygully]

I don't think people are very honest about motherhood in general. And I think more cerebral older mothers find it really really difficult to adapt to a mindless physical child-oriented existence. Many of my friends fought like mad before finally going under and surrendering to a greater or lesser extent.

[SarahMoss1596]

Yes, I think motherhood is where gender politics are most painful and least examined. I always tell students that anyone saying that something is 'natural' is actually telling you that it's political.

[TillyBookClub]

Great answer to southlondonlady. It struck me all the way through the book that every woman in it had no support at all. Anna, obviously, is the most prominent, but also May is completely unsupported and isolated and deliberately undermined by other women. And Judith is given no encouragement during her years of motherhood.

What I don't understand about current government and society, its how they seem to deliberately ignore the value of what mothers do, and in fact try to put them down, trivialise their skills or set ridiculous standards at every point rather than nurturing and encouraging.

If you were Prime Minister, what would you do to change things?

[blubberguts]

My children are now 6 and 9. As they get older I have a much, much better relationship with them and nurture a naive fantasy that I will come into my mothering own when they are teens. Perhaps this is where I will excel in the mothering game and perhaps this will be true of Anna too

[Hullygully]

Yes remember old Gloria Steinem's thing about issues affecting women = culture (and therefore must not be interfered with so circumcise away), those affecting men = politics?

So true

[AdeleVarens]

Hi Sarah. North London fan here.

Is it fair to say that your adult male characters tend to function rather as props for the psychological development of your female characters, rather than as fictional people in their own right? I can't decide whether Giles comes off the page as he does because he's being viewed through a haze of exhaustion and resentment by Anna, or because you're not that interested in him as a novelist...?

You've been described as a novelist of ideas - do you agree with this description of your work? Does it start with an idea, or as you've suggested - with a setting?

Last question - both your novels have combined contemporary plotlines with stories from the past. What is it about this juxtaposition that fascinates you so much?

[Hullygully]

Pay them.

[SarahMoss1596]

Gosh, Tilly, there's a question! Well, to start with I'd split parental leave so that each partner takes the same amount. I think a lot of gender inequality in the UK starts with maternity leave - once the mother's become 'the expert', as she has to when she's left alone with a baby all day, it's really, really hard to redress that balance. Then I'd subsidise nurseries a lot more than they are, and make childcare a well-paid and highly respected profession. And by that stage I might as well just hoist an Icelandic flag... (We spent a year in Iceland in 2009)

[Hullygully]

Because they don't count because the only "work" valued, is paid work. If someone (father/mother) looks after children, pay them for their work.

[Hullygully]

But if the parent wants to do it, pay them instead of outsourced childcare.

[Hullygully]

yes Iceland is good now they've chucked the macho we-can-all-be-bankers-even-tho-we-are-fishermen oafs out of positions of power and put the women in.

Huzzah!

[SarahMoss1596]

Hi Adele (shouldn't you be Jane with questions like that)?

It has been said. It's true that I often have to make an effort to read novels by men - there are exceptions - and that I've always been more interested in women's subjectivity. One of my colleagues once said that middle-class white men have a huge disadvantage as writers because they've never had to think through other people's eyes. Of course that's not true of everyone - there are lots of ways of being an outsider - but I like it as an iconoclastic starting point.

It starts with a setting, and ideas gather, but I'm not usually aware of the ideas while I'm actually writing. I see themes later in my own work, just as I'd see them in someone else's.

Well, my academic research is all in the C18 and C19 and I think that gives you a slightly different perspective on contemporary issues. Historical relativism is all.

[SarahMoss1596]

Blubberguts, I have the same idea. Also that it all keeps getting easier once you're past the sleeplessness. I put my fingers in my ears and sing when people talk about difficult teenagers.

[Hullygully]

Who are the male exceptions?

[SarahMoss1596]

Hully, except that actually Iceland has almost the same gender pay gap as here. It's all very odd.

[TillyBookClub]

And on the hitting mattress thing, surely most have been there in some way or other? I used to walk into the utility room and thrash the living daylights out of the sideboard with a tea towel. Then walk back into the mayhem with a smile on my face. My mum often smashed half a dozen plates outside the back door. The frustrations of motherhood find a physical manifestation. I think that's why I loved the writing so much, because it was brave and heartfelt.

[Hullygully]

I thought they were tackling that? They'd better.

[SarahMoss1596]

Um. Adam Foulds. Simon Mawer. Some Sebastian Faulkes. I've recently discovered Trollope, after years of dismissing him as C19 fiction for lightweights (I was very wrong).

[Hullygully]

I divorce my family on occasion. I just tell them, that's it, I divorce you all and walk off for a couple of hours. That learns em.

[SarahMoss1596]

I used to throw socks at the window. But I do think that's in a different category from punching the mattress beside your child's head.

[Hullygully]

Do you like Dorothy Whipple? (my new fave)

[SarahMoss1596]

I just announce that the muse is calling and I need to write now.