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  • Published: 3 May 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099455585
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $32.99

Mother Can You Hear Me?




'Forster has a God-given gift for storytelling' - The Times

Angela Bradbury's 'Poor Mother' : delicate, humble, permanently disappointed, has made endless sacrifices for her family, for which they can never quite be grateful enough. 'You can't please your mother', as her father says.

Even now, just one phone call from Mother can send Angela spiralling into guilt, self-recrimination and doubts over her own abilities as a mother. Worryingly, Angela's relationship with her own daughter Sadie seems to be going the same way, as Sadie develops into a sullen, unresponsive adolescent. It seems that motherhood is a heritage of disappointments and broken promises. But Angela is determined that, somehow, her relationship with Sadie will be different.

  • Published: 3 May 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099455585
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $32.99

About the author

Margaret Forster

Born in Carlisle, Margaret Forster was the author of many successful and acclaimed novels, including Have the Men Had Enough?, Lady's Maid, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Is There Anything You Want? , Keeping the World Away, Over and The Unknown Bridesmaid. She also wrote bestselling memoirs – Hidden Lives, Precious Lives and, most recently, My Life in Houses – and biographies. She was married to writer and journalist Hunter Davies and lived in London and the Lake District. She died in February 2016, just before her last novel, How to Measure a Cow, was published.

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Praise for Mother Can You Hear Me?

Margaret Forster's...novel about mothers and daughters...is one of the most painfully honest I have ever read. It raised agonising questions about female identity, asking whether the role of mother leaves anything over for the individual woman, and whether daughters can ever shake off the past

Joan Smith, Guardian

A new work by Margaret Forster always gives me a tingle of anticipation. Her books are consistently good reads, packed with originality and imagination

Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

Forster is remarkably honest, skilful and perceptive

Observer

An honest portrait of the generation gap and the perennial irritations that bedevil this most powerful and idealised of all blood ties

Company