Mother of Pearl

by Mary Morrissy

The story of one woman's search for home and family is the tale of the abduction of an infant and revelation of a middle-aged woman who begins to remember her shadow-life as the daughter of a different mother

Genres: Fiction, Irish Literature, Novels, Literary Fiction

Board Book

First published July 1, 1995

About the author

Mary Morrissy (born 1957 Dublin) is an Irish writer. Morrissy was educated at the Rathmines School of Journalism. She worked in Australia, and as a sub-editor of The Irish Press. She taught creative writing for the University of Arkansas, and University of Iowa creative writing summer programmes.

She was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, for her work-in-progress, The Duchess, an imagined autobiography of Bella O'Casey, the sister of Seán O'Casey. In 2008 - 09, she was Jenny McKean Moore "Writer in Washington" at George Washington University, Washington DC.

Her novel "Mother of Pearl" was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize in 1996.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel in three parts, Mother of Pearl explores three women's lives, the first two will mother the same child, the third is that child grown - the consequence of a repressed childhood, of events never talked about, of the effect of those events and years and the suppression of them on her psyche.

Part 1 - We meet Irene in Granitefield sanotorium, an institution where she spends some years due to TB. She willingly leaves her family behind and finds some kind of comfort in the hospital, electing to remain there as an employee, long after she has recovered from her illness.

The operation, they told her, had saved her. But she had lost four of her ribs, cracked open by a giant pair of shears...Without her ribs Irene felt as if part of her protection against the world had been removed.

Standing vigil, she recognises the imminence of death with one of the patients.

Irene knew the moment she saw Stanley Godwin that he was watching someone beloved die. Healthy people keeping vigil seemed to take on the symptoms of the disease.

This son, who is with his mother, suddenly understands. His attention moves towards Irene.

Inwardly he was quaking. He could comprehend the impending loss; what he couldn't imagine was his life afterwards. A middle-aged man about to be granted unwanted freedom.

Outside of the institution, longing for a child she knows will not come, brooding on her own losses, she succumbs to her own fantasies and one day indulges her desire, removing a sickly child from a hospital, a baby she names Pearl.

This was her offspring, hers alone, the child of her illness, Irene's first loss. And she was still out there. Not dead, simply lost. In a hospital ward somewhere, unclaimed, waiting for her mother. This time Irene determined she would tell no one, not even Stanley. She would seek out the child who was rightfully hers, the fruit of Eve's ribs.

Part 2 - We meet Rita, who becomes Mrs Mel Spain, mother of the baby she hadn't realised how much she wanted, until she is taken. And the husband Mel, son of an absent father, who feels the pull to follow in his footsteps.

It didn't stop Mel wondering, however, how his father had managed the extraordinary trick of disappearing into thin air. He had become invisible by simply walking out of his life. Ten years after the event, as he nursed his fourth drink of the night, Mel finally understood how easy it must have been. It was not, as he had always thought, a daring but calculated move; it was a matter of impulse and extreme selfishness.

Part 3 - we meet the child, a child who remembers little of her early life, who is told stories that don't resonate with dream-like memories she has, who feels like an outsider in her family and can't explain to herself why.

Exploring themes of loss, abandonment, denial, Mother of Pearl takes us inside the dysfunction of family, of obsession with and rejection of a child, of the long-lasting impact on those formative years on the compromised adult that will little understand their own inclination(s), as those threads of early development and the scars of traumatic events imprint on their psyche and affect their future selves.

[Jenn Amanda (she / her) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐

[Julianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

My sleeper pick. This is not the Oprah book pick by the same name. I love this little known novel!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is somehow a poem and a novel at the same time. Each line carries the same weight as a poem packed full of meaning.

[Elizabeth Grubgeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly a page-turner with unforgettable characters who feel very complex and real, even minor characters like the two husbands whom we never know very well but feel as if we do. The author is a bit heavy on the adjectives--but she has a strong and competent style that is occasionally elegant. Without giving any plot-spoilers (and this is a plot-driven novel, so spoilers might indeed spoil a reader's experience), I have to say that I don't understand why Pearl turns out the way she does at the end. There's just not enough justification for the ending, and that was disappointing. It's as if Morrissy wasn't quite sure how to get out of the story. Still, I would recommend this if you're looking for a very engrossing novel about the longings of parents for children and children for parents.

[Liz Bailey]

Bit of a surprise find. Morrissey's writing style is very dramatic and deep and meaningful but sometimes bit much. Very dark and raw in places and sometimes a bit hard to follow her intentions. Left me wanting to know so much more about the storyline and the characters' motivations for their actions. As a mum I rejected the very unmaternal feelings put forward at times. Would be interested in trying another written by her. Reminded me a bit of Kate Grenville's dark offerings like Lilian's Story.

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good characters and storytelling.

[Abe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transcendent writing. A profound and distinctive literary experience.

[Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich, strange book about a 1940s Irish sanitorium and a tubercular virgin who gets pregnant. (Yes, you read that right.) Sadly overlooked.

[Jessica Burgess · Rating 2 out of 5]

This may be a good book but it is just not the kind of book I like. It is written in too poetic a style, sort of dreamy, the style some people might like but I found it boring.

[Mamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird book, but interesting. Deep and serious but not quite as entertaining and full of a plot as I had hoped.