Fresh from February's tripartite trip through The High Mountains of Portugal, care of Canadian bestseller Yann Martel, the Pat Kenny Show and Eason Book Club is turning its focus closer to home and reading an Irish book. And with Mother's Day just around the corner, this fascinating look at the relationship between and adoptee and her biological mother promises to be very intriguing. We'll be tackling Caitríona Palmer's An Affair with my Mother.
Caitríona Palmer had a happy childhood in Dublin, raised by loving adoptive parents. But when she was in her late twenties, she realised that she had a strong need to know the woman who had given birth to her. She was able to locate her birth mother, Sarah, and they developed a strong attachment. But Sarah set one painful condition to this joyous new relationship: she wished to keep it - to keep Caitríona - secret from her family, from her friends, from everyone.
Who was Sarah, and why did she want to preserve a decades-old secret?
An Affair with my Mother tells the story of Caitríona's quest to answer these questions, and of the intense, furtive 'affair' she and her mother conducted in carefully chosen locations around Dublin. By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, An Affair with My Mother is a searing portrait of the social and familial forces that left Sarah - and so many other unwed Irish mothers of her generation - frightened, traumatised and bereft. It is also a beautifully written account of a remarkable relationship.
The Eason Book Club members - Pat Kenny, Mary O'Rourke, Brian Kennedy, and Katherine Lynch - will give their take on Caitríona's book during The Pat Kenny Show on Thursday, March 31st. So get reading!
You can listen back to last month's Book Club in the podcast below:
