The Mothers
Literary fiction
Riverhead books
October 11, 2016
Advanced Reader Copy
288
Publisher via BEA
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother’s recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor’s son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it’s not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.
My review:
This book was one of the five chosen as the editor's fall picks at BEA. Upon reading this book, I could easily see why. The writing is absolutely beautiful! Here is a line from the very beginning of the book, to give you a sense of what follows:
"Grief was not a line, carrying you infinitely further from loss. You never knew when you would be sling-shot backward into its grip."
The mothers in this story are actually all members of the local church. They get together for bible group, and of course like to chat about what's going on in their church community. These impressions are woven into the novel in a very clever way, although they are not the main focus. The book is really about three people over the course of about ten years. Two are best friends, who have the fact that they are both motherless in common, and the other is the pastor's son, who weaves in and out of their lives throughout the story. It's about a secret (which the reader is privy to from the beginning), and how that effects their lives throughout the book. Mostly it's about how the main character deals with being left by a loved one, and ultimately carrying on the loss, guilt, and shame. I wish the book had been just a bit longer, so that we could have even more depth given to the characters, but I am still so impressed by the writing that I'm going to chock my criticism up to the fact that I just wanted to read more!
A must read, gorgeously written debut novel (yes, it's a debut, and the author is only 25!). I cannot wait to see what Ms. Bennett comes up with next.
Agree with it all! And - I wondered about the title too after finishing the book. The mothers really are not a central focus at all and I wondered why choose that for the title...UNLESS it's also referring to Nadia as a mother (kind of) and Nadia's own mother. Maybe?
I felt that the title really referred to all of the above. The ladies of the church, Nadia as a mother, and both Nadia and Aubrey's mothers, and the difference in the way they died (and how that affected both girls)?