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Grace and Mary

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About this listen

 Could he not put together a memory for her? Perhaps he could become her memory. To build it from fragments, or make it up. And most of all bring back Grace. Her own mother.

John visits his ageing mother Mary in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore up her receding memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs and questions from their shared past, taking her back to the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town.

But as he rekindles her memories, it is her own mother she longs for - and John finds himself delving further back, into the secrets and silences of Mary's fractured childhood, and the unsung sorrows of her thwarted yet spirited mother, Grace.
In an effort to console his mother before she slips away, John sets out to re-imagine Grace's life, to honour the memory of a grandmother he barely knew.

Reaching from the late 19th century to the present, John's loving recreation of forgotten family history and unspoken maternal grief becomes a moving elegy for the long hidden chain of love, loss, and self-sacrifice which forms each and every generation.


(P)2013 Hodder & Stoughton©2013 Melvyn Bragg Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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Although a nice enough story and fine use of language, I had hoped for more from Melvyn Bragg, especially if you compare it to his "A Time to Dance".

Disappointing

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I'm afraid I did struggle with this book. I felt that all too often the characterisation was sacrificed on the alter of erudition. I wanted to know more about the people, their feelings and emotions and motivation, rather than the learned facts. For example, at the dance I wasn't really interested in the minute details of how it had been run for years etc, but in the characters involved! and how they were feeling There is no doubt that Melvyn Bragg is an extremely learned man, and some of the facts and thoughts were interesting, but this is obviously too dry a book for me. I did by the end, though, really empathise with Mother and Son, but it took a long time to get there.

A bit of a struggle

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If you could sum up Grace and Mary in three words, what would they be?

nostalgic salutary delightful

Which scene did you most enjoy?

Grace's dignity when she is shocked by the news of Alan's engagement

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, but it was nicely divided by the two narrators

Any additional comments?

It made me sad and I loved it !!!

Tugs at the heart strings

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I thoroughly enjoyed this. It is obviouslly based on personal experience which gives it more intensity. The book is basically the story of a man and his elderly mother, who is suffering from dementia and in a care home. He encourages her to talk about the past where the memories are still intact, and so we learn about Mary's past and that of her mother Grace.

The tale touches on the issues of illegitimacy and how it was viewed in small-town Cumbria in the early 20th century; also that of ageing parents and how we cope with and react to the changes in them.

The descriptions of Carlisle, Wigton and Silloth both present and past were evocative (I live in Carlisle and so know most of the places described). I particularly liked though the way the author writes about his conflicting feelings concerning his mother (through the character of John); the many emotions of anger, impatience, guilt, tenderness and love that are involved in coping with an ageing relative and coming to terms with the loss even before they are gone.

This was beautifully and sensitively narrated.

Wonderful heartwarming story

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Thoughtful, insightful story which chronicles the sadness of dementia in old age on Mary and her son John and also exploring the story of Grace and how her relationship with Mary was tragically affected by the narrow mindedness of the time.

Poignant story beautifully narrated

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