"Mothering Sunday" by Graham Swift

After taking a while to get through my last book ("Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom" by Carl Bernstein, reviewed here), I deliberately sought a book that would be short and quick to get through. "Mothering Sunday" by Graham Swift fit the bill, in that respect -- it's 200 pages (or less, depending on what version you're reading and, if it's an e-version, how big you make the type and spacing, lol). It only took me a few hours to read. It's been on my TBR list for a while -- it caught my interest at the bookstore when it first came out in hardcover a few years ago (gorgeous cover design!). It's also been adapted into a movie that's coming out at the end of the month. 

"Mothering Sunday" -- the day, not the book -- is not a familiar term to those of us in North America. In the United Kingdom (and some Commonwealth countries), it's been celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent since the Middle Ages. It's a celebration both of mothers (the equivalent of North America's Mother's Day) and the "mother church," i.e., the church where you were baptized.  Traditionally, Mothering Sunday was a day when domestic servants were given the day off to visit their mothers/families and mother church.

There's not much action or plot in "Mothering Sunday" the book -- although there is a plot twist, midway through. It's Mothering Sunday 1924, a warm spring day in late March. Jane Fairchild is a 22-year-old maid at an English country estate. (Think "Downton Abbey" on a much smaller, reduced scale, after the devastation of the First World War -- Jane and Milly the cook are the only remaining servants, and most of the local young men are dead, their bedrooms preserved exactly as they left them. A melancholy air hangs over everything.) Several of the local families, including Jane's employers, the Nivens, are heading out to lunch together at a local hotel while the servants are off, and to celebrate the upcoming marriage of two of their children, Paul Sherrington and Emma Hobday.  

Jane is an orphan with no parents to visit -- but she has secret plans for the day. She and Paul have been lovers since shortly after she arrived at the Nivens' house several years earlier, at age 16, and they are taking advantage of the Sherringtons' empty house to make love one last time, in Paul's bedroom, before his marriage. Everything changes for Jane after Mothering Sunday -- although not for the reasons she (or we) might think... 

While the main story takes place on this one day, we also get glimpses of Jane's past and of what ultimately happens to her. (I don't think it's a spoiler alert to tell you that Jane never has any children.)  There's a lot here about books, about writing and storytelling, the power of words and observation and memory. 

I debated on how to rate this book, and settled on 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 -- it's a fast read, but slow moving and contemplative, if that makes sense. The writing is beautiful, but it's a bit dense at times. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, but it made me think, and I may need to do a re-read...! 

This was Book #8 read to date in 2022 (and Book #3 finished in February), bringing me to 18% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."