Mother Country

by Libby Purves (Author), Libby Purves (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.25

  Even her closest friend agreed that Shark Grayson wasn't fit to keep her baby. A heroin addict, living in a sordid London squat, she was already close to death when her American lover took charge of the situation by force, and carried off the baby Alexander to give him a loving home in the Mid-West and an affluent future. But now Alex is twenty-seven, orphaned again and afflicted by a sense of lost roots and a romantic vision of England. A business trip provides the chance to go and trace his unknown relatives. He finds friendship; encounters some startlingly predatory girls; and confronts mystery in the eccentric alternative health centre run by the austere Julia. He discovers that while some British people are very hard indeed to get along with, some turn out to be, after all, more closely akin to him than he could ever have imagined.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.25

  This title presents a hugely moving and affecting literary memoir of adoption, secrets and the need to belong. Mother Country evokes a magical childhood spent in transit between Notting Hill Gate and a decrepit houseboat on the banks of the Thames. It is a detective quest, as Harding searches through the public record for a clue about his natural mother, and a rich social history of a lost London from the 1950s. Mother Country is a powerful true story, full of thrilling revelations, comic confusion and tender memories, about a man looking for the mother he'd never known and finding out how little he'd understood about the one he'd grown up with.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.25

  Moira Grayson is a heroin addict, living in a sordid London squat in the hippie 1970s, unfit to look after her baby. She was close to death when her American lover carried off the baby Alexander to give him a loving home in the Mid-West and an affluent future. But now Alex is twenty-seven, orphaned and afflicted by a sense of lost roots and a romantic vision of what he sees as the magical and sacred, heroic and democratic, happy and glorious realms of England. A business trip provides the chance to go and trace his unknown relatives. He finds friendship, mystery and comfort from a quite unexpected direction. He discovers that while some British people are seriously hard to get along with, some turn out to be, after all, more closely akin to him than he could ever have imagined.