A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son’s Search for His Mother

by Jeremy Gavron

It's 1965, and in Primrose Hill, north London, a beautiful young woman has just gassed herself to death, leaving behind a suicide note, two small children, and an about-to-be-published manuscript: The Captive Wife.


Like Sylvia Plath, who died in eerily similar circumstances two years earlier just two streets away, Hannah Gavron was a writer. But no-one had ever imagined that she might take her own life. Bright, sophisticated, and swept up in the progressive politics of the 1960s, Hannah was a promising academic and the wife of a rising entrepreneur. Surrounded by success, she seemed to live a gilded life.

But there was another side to Hannah, as Jeremy Gavron's searching memoir of his mother reveals. Piecing together
the events that led to his mother's suicide when he was just four, he discovers that Hannah's success came at
a price, and that the pressures she faced as she carved out her place in a man's world may have contributed to her death. Searching for the mother who was never talked about as he grew up, he discovers letters, diaries, and photos that paint a picture of a brilliant but complex young woman grappling to find an outlet for her creativity, sexuality, and intelligence.

A Woman on the Edge of Time not only documents the too-short life of an extraordinary woman; it is a searching
examination of the suffocating constrictions in place on intelligent, ambitious women in the middle of the twentieth century.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Feminism, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, Historical

272 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2015

About the author

Jeremy Gavron is the author of six books, including the novels The Book of Israel, winner of the Encore Award, and An Acre of Barren Ground; and A Woman on the Edge of Time, a memoir about his mother’s suicide. He lives in London, and teaches on the MFA at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

Reviews

[Zora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not quite an easy read - how could it be given the author set out to find out more about his mother who suicided when he was four and she was twenty nine - but it was certainly a page turner. The author wrote eloquently and directly and organised the material in such a way that there was not an ounce of fat on it. At times this meant I wanted more, though of what I am not quite sure. The last fifty pages were the most powerful as the author panned out to locate his mother in the immediate pre Women's Liberation period. I now want to chase up his mother's one published book, her sociology thesis called A Captive Wife. Hannah Gavron deserves to be remembered as a feminist sociologist and Britain certainly has produced some impressive ones.

[Ieva Andriuskeviciene · Rating 4 out of 5]

The suicide doesn’t go alone, he takes everybody with him
William Maxwell



Hannah Gavron was a promising academic, mother of two sons, with her doctorate theses to be published as a book “The Captive wife”. At age of 29 she is found dead in her flat in the same way as Sylvia Plath killed herself 2 years ago, couple of doors down the road.

This book is her sons study of his mother’s life and an effort to explain and try to understand his mother’s life.
Marital affairs, academic and bohemian life vs family life and being proper wife. Can you have it all? Nicely written and digging deep into mother’s letters and his father’s diaries

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hannah Gavron was an out-going, confident child, an accomplished, confident teenager, popular and desirous of growing up.

She wanted to do something with her life, she wanted to share her views with the world, but she also wanted freedom, to leave the constrictions of her family, to be in love, to claim her place. She married at 18, went to RADA to study to become an actress for a year, quit and had two children, then realising her prospects were limited, she went back to university to study sociology, and went as far as gaining a PhD.

It seemed she had everything going for her, and yet at the age of 29, when her youngest son, Jeremy, the author of this memoir was 4 years old, she took her own life, shocking everyone around her.

Jeremy is now the father of two girls himself and for most of his life the subject of his mother has never been discussed and he has never challenged that. However now he wants to understand the mystery, for how could it happen that a woman with so much going for her and with so much ahead of her and with two small children, and a manuscript about to be published, suddenly end it all?

Her son interviews an extraordinary number of people and succeeds in recreating the jigsaw of Hannah's life in incredible detail and begins to understand the multiple forces that may have played a part in leading up to that tragic decision she made.

As gripping as any mystery, it reads like the pageturner it is and provides an interesting insight into a subject Hannah Gavron wrote her thesis about, 'The Captive Wife' and the struggle of women in the 1960's trying to forge a career in sociology and any studies which made women the subject, a topic that was not ready to be accepted by many in power in academia at the time.

It reminded me of reading Nancy Rappaport's In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother's Suicide, she too was 4 years old when her mother, who was raising a large family as well as being involved in organising society events and political campaigning, when she suddenly committed suicide.

They are tragic stories and create a memory for the author, piecing together the short life of the young woman who was his mother. It left me wondering about the author himself, as he keeps himself well out of the narrative, not shining any light on how it had been for him to grow up under this shadow, to accept the love of another mother, to wonder how this turning point changed who he would become. Rather he shines his light outward and build an incredibly detailed vision of his mother, leaving just a hint of suggestion that within her, we may also finds parts of him.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite a memoir, nor a biography, nor autobiography, or perhaps all of these, and a detective story. I'm finding it difficult to work out why I found it compulsive reading, but I did. Jeremy Gavron doesn't really remember his mother, Hannah, - she kills herself when he is four - and only many years later does he finally decide to go looking for her. He tracks down everyone (it seems) who knew her and interviews them, and the resulting book is meticulous and moving. As it approached the end I was worried that Gavron wouldn't be able to come to any conclusion about why she committed suicide, or that he wouldn't be able to find the one person who might have some answers. But the ending is handled really well - of course he can't be conclusive, but he makes some logical guesses and he does meet the man. And then right at the end, there's a little unexpected twist.
My only niggle is the snippets of letters Hannah writes to her friend when they were both girls. Even Gavron at one point says they don't add much - they are the letters of one school girl to another. For me, they didn't add anything.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book months ago but could never figure out what to say in a review. I don't think I've ever been so conflicted about my opinions on a book. I *think* I really liked it. I think the issue is, I liked the book, but really disliked the subject. Not the issue of a son on a journey to discover his lost mother, but the mother herself. I'll be really nice and just say, I have strong feelings over Hannah. But I think that's a sign that the writing in this is very strong. Gavron lays out the story so well that I doubt you'll finish this book feeling "meh".

**I received this copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire Mr. Gavron very much. His search for knowledge regarding his mother's life and death is something that was not only brave, but necessary, and something I don't think that I would have had the courage to undertake.
His ability to articulate his journey and his feelings was a brilliant bit of writing, and enabled the reader to invest in his personal quest.

Highly recommend this book.

[Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this exploration of the life of one man's mother who committed suicide when he was just a boy. A wonderful journalistic, loving and sympathetic memoir of a beautiful soul. A discovery of the humanness of ones mother and an uncovering of the silence into her suicide and her life. I was reminded of the death of my mother at 60 years of age and how there is so much I do not know and wish I knew about her and her life. So many questions I did not ask. A beautiful unfolding of life and love and understanding by Jeremy Gavin.

[The Reading Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est un livre courageux, sans concession, un portrait de femme dans les années 50 et 60 ; l'esquisse d'une mère par son fils cadet. Jeremy Gavron n'est pas le premier homme à écrire sur sa mère mais il n'y a pas beaucoup d'hommes qui ont perdu leur mère enfant pour cause de suicide.

[Anne Fenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

We know from the start that this book is about the author's search for what lay behind his mother's suicide when he was four years old. I don't think the answer is crystal clear to him, in spite of his very thorough examination of her circumstances. The event occurring just on the cusp of the women's movement of the 1960s is a pivotal element. My comments sound clinical, but the book is far from that - deeply personal, emotional , determined, compassionate to all involved, it's quite unique. Beautifully written and well worth reading.

[Andrea Trenary · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slog.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a morbid fascination with real life cases of suicide. Maybe it’s my psychology degree, maybe it’s the mystery involved, but I want to learn as much as I can. I can’t imagine what would drive a mother to small children who appears to be so accomplished to such a drastic act that effects so many. I hoped in reading this tale that I would understand more about the mindset that lead Hannah to this point.

At first, Gavron tells us what he remembers learning as he grew up and what he has pieced together about his mother’s actual death. He was only 4 at that point, so much if it is learned later in his life, most of it as he starts inquiries among those that knew his mother. As he moves into Hannah’s life history, I became fascinated. How often do we learn so much about a person, picking up on little clues and nuances that may explain later acts in life? Gavron’s chronicle is thorough – he left no stone unturned, even after 70+ years after Hannah’s girlhood.

Also interesting to note is how much further behind America Britain seemed to be regarding the women’s movement. Hannah appeared to be able to have it all: a family, a husband, a lover, a full education and an admirable career. But one thing was the tipping point that drove her over the edge. Her doctoral thesis, published posthumously as “The Captive Wife”, made her into a feminist figure when it was very hard to be one. Many women in America were pushing the boundaries, but Hannah seemed very much alone. I wonder if she had been in America if she would have felt as hopeless.

If you’re interested in sociology and/or psychology, I think you would enjoy A Woman on the Edge of Time. However, there really is no happy ending or revelation in this story. It’s a dark examination of a troubled young woman’s mind, to the extent that can be pieced together by her actions and at a distance of 50 years. This book will be published in the US on September 20, 2016; you can preorder it now from Amazon.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. All thoughts are my own.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a morbid fascination with real life cases of suicide. Maybe it’s my psychology degree, maybe it’s the mystery involved, but I want to learn as much as I can. I can’t imagine what would drive a mother to small children who appears to be so accomplished to such a drastic act that effects so many. I hoped in reading this tale that I would understand more about the mindset that lead Hannah to this point.

At first, Gavron tells us what he remembers learning as he grew up and what he has pieced together about his mother’s actual death. He was only 4 at that point, so much if it is learned later in his life, most of it as he starts inquiries among those that knew his mother. As he moves into Hannah’s life history, I became fascinated. How often do we learn so much about a person, picking up on little clues and nuances that may explain later acts in life? Gavron’s chronicle is thorough – he left no stone unturned, even after 70+ years after Hannah’s girlhood.

Also interesting to note is how much further behind America Britain seemed to be regarding the women’s movement. Hannah appeared to be able to have it all: a family, a husband, a lover, a full education and an admirable career. But one thing was the tipping point that drove her over the edge. Her doctoral thesis, published posthumously as “The Captive Wife”, made her into a feminist figure when it was very hard to be one. Many women in America were pushing the boundaries, but Hannah seemed very much alone. I wonder if she had been in America if she would have felt as hopeless.

If you’re interested in sociology and/or psychology, I think you would enjoy A Woman on the Edge of Time. However, there really is no happy ending or revelation in this story. It’s a dark examination of a troubled young woman’s mind, to the extent that can be pieced together by her actions and at a distance of 50 years.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. All thoughts are my own.

[rdgit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story:
I found this book very difficult to put down. It read like a mystery, and a mystery Hanna was. Hanna was a young mother of two who chose death over living a conflicted life. She was 29 when she committed suicide, leaving behind two young children, an estranged husband, a lover and serious questions about how to survive in a life where she seemed to have everything but obviously did not. The author, Hanna's youngest son, does incredible research to understand his mother's decision and along the way learns much more about his mother than if she had lived.
Hanna was a complicated woman who was described as generous, brilliant and rational, yet difficult, melodramatic and depressive. In addition to those traits, she was a very independent woman living in a man's world. She wrote a book called The Captive Wife which was published shortly after her death. The author explores her life discovering snippets of her personality and clues to why she killed herself.
The Read:
As stated above, this was a page turner which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have only two complaints. First, I found it impossible to sort through all the people in Hanna's life. I could not keep them straight in my head. It was even difficult to keep track of family members and close relationships however, I found it unnecessary to do so. Each person offered incite into Hanna's life and I was able to collect that input regardless of who was offering it. The second minor irritation is, I was often confused by the author using for instance, “he” in a sentence when there were multiple possible “hes” that he could have been referring to. This would cause me to re-read a sentence many times and at times the whole paragraph. This was a minor bump in the road to reading this intriguing book. This was a fast read that drove me to the end. I would definitely recommend this book!

[Kylene Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a book rescue not knowing much about it but it definitely drew me to it. The speed in which I read it says something. I did not want to put this book down. Hannah was such a strong woman and so ahead of her time. It made me think of being a woman before now. My grandmother was also ahead of her time. I often thought about my mother who was in the same age group as Hannah. Women were expected to be a certain way and women who chose not to had a difficult road. Unfortunately, Hannah ultimately couldn't handle it and took her life. She left two young boys and a family that never spoke of her again. This is written by the younger of the boys as he tries to understand his mother and her choice. This book also made me proud of my daughters who are in no hurry to marry and have babies. They are living their lives before they go down this path, if they choose that path I sure wish that I had done so. Hannah's thesis that was later published is The Captive Wife. I wonder how many of us feel the way this book implies. I think Ii will have to find it and read it. I know I can probably relate. I gave up my life for the "dream" and it was a mistake. Now I am alone, poor, and fifty, trying to figure out how to live my dreams. I will make it as I have made it this far. This book is worth the read. It is not anti-man. It is not anti-marriage. It is more about having the strength to follow your dreams. The women back then had so many more obstacles than we do now. It has improved but many are still there due to our gender. We need to continue to change things for our daughters and granddaughter.

[Kate Forsyth · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1965, in Primrose Hill, London, a beautiful and passionate young woman gasses herself to death, leaving behind two small children and an about-to-be-published manuscript of her life’s work…

The woman is Hannah Gavron, and her death is eerily similar to that of Sylvia Plath who killed herself two years earlier and only two streets away.

Jeremy Gavron, Hannah’s son, was only four when she died and has no memory of her. She was always an aching presence in his life, however, as absences so often are. He wondered about her, but could never talk about it to his father or his brother. When his brother died, however, Jeremy Gavron was so overwhelmed with pain he realised that he was also grieving for his mother. A few months later, Sylvia Plath’s son Nicholas Hughes committed suicide. The similarities between his own life and that of Nicholas Hughes chilled him, and he set out to try and solve the mystery of his mother’s death.

A Woman on the Edge of Time is therefore a memoir of a woman the author could not remember, an autobiography which reveals little about the author’s life, a true-life detective story about a death in which the murderer was always known. It is also an utterly brilliant book about a woman who could not break out of the cage of her time.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it really hard to rate and review these kind of books, as this is the story of someones life. Many people want to explore the past and find out their history and about the lives of those who went before them, but I think the author of this book is very brave to want to share that search and experience with others.
The author's mother committed suicide when he was a small child and he has grown up not really knowing much about her, so he sets out to, fill in the blanks in his life, as it where and find out who is mother was and attempt to try and shed light on why she died the way that she did. Aside from this, I also thought it was an interesting glimpse into the way women were treated in the 60's and it shows how far we have come in society since then.
My thanks to scribe for a fascinating and interesting read.

[SuzAnne King · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I think I have to sit with it for awhile before I write my review for the paper. I need to re-read a few sections.
I was really keen to read this memoir after meeting the author and liking what he had to say at the Brisbane Writers Festival 2016. Under different circumstances (chronic pain, old age and infirmity) I have always accepted suicide or euthanasia, but I came away from this book really disliking Hannah not because of what she did but just the personality that came across. While the book was no doubt cathartic for Jeremy, I'm not entirely sure he got to the bottom of it all but then, do we ever in these cases? I think not. It left me wondering whether Hannah even knew for sure what she was doing. I'll be interested to know what other readers thought.

[Pagesinsolites · Rating 3 out of 5]

" Je vous aime terriblement peut se lire à la fois comme une enquête policière, [...] et comme un travail d’histoire sociale, une charge pleine d’intelligence contre les limites qui étaient alors imposées aux femmes. " The Observer

Je pense que cela résume bien mon ressenti face à ce livre. L'enquête sur la mort de Hannah Gavron est bien menée, mais je pense que ce qui était le plus intéressant était de voir comment l'auteur décrypte la place de la femme dans les années 1960/1970, comment certaines essayaient de s'émanciper tandis que d'autres ne voulaient surtout pas sortir du cadre. Il montre la difficulté de vouloir évoluer et gagner en indépendance tout en gardant une place dans la société. Une lecture très intéressante, mais aussi très touchante sur la relation d'un fils n'ayant jamais pu connaitre sa mère.

[Frances Canning · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strange book and not very enjoyable. The writer was damaged by his mother's suicide when he was four, and now excavates her life reading everything he can get his hands on and meeting almost everyone she had dealings with. The detail is almost unending and, I thought, much of it was boring and banal. (e.g. 'When I was four days old my grandfather recorded a 'pleasant supper' with Hannah and my father'). I'm very surprised at the glowing reviews, because to me it was a detailed private account suitable, maybe, for keeping as a family record, within the family. The story was not very dramatic, and Hannah was either deeply mentally disturbed and depressed, or else astonishingly self-centred both in her suicide and in her behaviour in the months before. I found it difficult not to be judgemental.

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book by a mistake, but didn’t realize before I’d started reading. And when I’d started, I couldn’t stop. It dragged me along to the very last page. I now feel an emptiness after having finished it. I loved it, and will probably read it again at one point.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why would a beautiful young woman, smart and accomplished, a born leader, mother of two boys, kill herself suddenly? Here, the youngest son, after years of not thinking about his mother, investigates. Of course he will never really know for sure, but he talks to her friends, former lovers, neighbors, anyone who had contact with Hannah. In the process, he investigates what it was like to be a young woman in the early sixties, juggling societal expectations to be a good wife and mother with the social movement to break out of that mold.

A beautifully-written exploration of a woman's life by the son who juggles anger and love as he tries to understand her.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an interesting account that I ended up reading it all in one sitting. In his journey to uncover the truth about his mother's suicide, Jeremy Gavron gives an interesting insight into the history of his mother's life and it's associated inhabitants. While I had very little sympathy for his mother, both at the outset and the conclusion, I have a lot empathy for Jeremy and applaud his efforts at what must have been a truly gut wrenching experience at times, digging into his mother's past such as he did. This book highlighted one major point for me: we never truly know another person. Perhaps we are not meant to.

[Sherry Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give this 4 stars not so much for the writing which was fine but because I was interested in the topic. It is a very sad book in that a young intelligent attractive woman with a husband and children felt so overwhelmed that she had to kill herself. It must've been so hard in the 50s and sixties to be that kind of woman. Wanting a life of her own and a family and struggling to get the respect she deserved. There are many similarities to the story of Sylvia Plath who struggled with the same sorts of problems. I found this a fascinating read by a boy who lost his mum when he was so young and had to live his whole life wondering why she made this decision.

[Ingrid Wassenaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very thought-provoking book -- so bleak, albeit illuminating. Jeremy Gavron has achieved the saddest of memorials to his mother, and to his own suffering and depression. The care in the writing marks the pain he must have experienced in the writing of the book, and one can only hope that he experienced some kind of catharsis from it. I think he did. In some ways this is a book that is too intimate to be read, from which the reader feels excluded. But at the universal level this is about the way we all lose our mothers, the way they vanish from our grasp, elude us, as we long for them.

[Electra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong memoir about a man whose mother had killed herself when she was 29. Her death was a shock. She was married, two children, just got her PhD - what went wrong? His father remarried and her name was never pronounced again. Years went by when the writer's older and only brother died abruptly at the age of 46. The author decides its time to look up for Hannah - who was she ? and why did she kill herself ?
Beautiful, intense, an act of mourning but also revealing of the British society during the early 60s.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was spellbound by this one, completely caught up in the story of a son's quest to understand his mother and her life before she committed suicide. It sounds morbid but it is so intelligently and beautifully written that the story unfolds like a novel. Dreadful though the facts and conclusions are, it still manages to be life affirming.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and researched, I found this dive into the life of a young feminist in the early 60s hard to put down. For the author to share so much of his mother as he discovers her and forms his own opinions of her is as compelling as it is heart wrenching.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sons memoir a very unusual memoir.Jeremy's mother killed herself when he was four.So he really didn't know her.In this emotional moving book he delves into her life ,her life as a young mother a feminist.This book reads like a detective story I could not put it down,

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book is of a very private matter, a man searching to know about his mother who committed suicide when he was 4 years old, there are implications that extend out to the larger world.

Hannah Gavron was only 29 and killed herself with a gas oven, similar to a couple other women writers around that time, and oddly only blocks away from where Sylvia Plath killed herself. Although it isn't brought up in the book, one wonders if she had read about Plath and decided to follow suit.

Hannah also had children, the author was only 4 years old. She was finishing a doctorate degree in sociology and her thesis was turned into a book that was published, hitting the shelves shortly after her death. The book The Captive Wife: Conflicts of Housebound Mothers was significant for women and changing society, particularly in Britain. Perhaps not as well known as the earlier book published by Betty Friedan with The Feminine Mystique, but adding to the conversation of women stuck at home with little to no options with outside work. Perhaps this was why Hannah chose to end her life?

There are many reasons offered in the book, and perhaps it was not one specific, but the combination of them, piling up to where she thought there was no other option. Although there was also the idea put out that it was a ploy that went on too long. Don't want to give anything away, but it was mentioned early that Hannah had been having an affair with a gay man and there had been an argument. Was this the result of that trouble?

As mentioned in the beginning this is a very personal story. The author tells us each step along the way of trying to find out about his mother, and ultimately to understand why she did that last fatal step. At times it feels like an invasion reading this, but clearly the author has put it out there for everyone to read. Jeremy Gavron is a writer, and author of several novels, this is what he does, he writes. It is hard not to feel regret that Jeremy didn't know his mother better and also to feel a sense of loss for everyone. What would she have gone on to do? She was on the cusp of a career that could have done so much more for women.

This is a fascinating book, but ultimately fills you with the sense of loss.



I received a free copy of this book at a library conference. I was not required to write a review, but felt like it and, of course, the above opinions are my own.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir balances so well between being an objective piecing together of events, and a heartfelt, understanding and forgiving account of a son in the search for his mother's life leading up to her suicide.

The study Gavron makes of his mother's life is so thorough given how many years have passed since the event, and he is gentle and compassionate with the material and people involved. It is all the more compelling and tragic that perhaps if Hannah could have borne the weight of her sadness a little longer, she might have found peace or freedom in the feminist movement that took off just a few years after her death.

Hannah is vivid and real, a woman with so much inside; intelligence, wit, desire, love, talent. She must have been incredible to know, and the shame that her son's never really did get to know her is heart rending.

It is a beautifully written account with love and longing clear on every page. Highly recommended.

Also recommend Hannah Gavron's study 'The Captive Wife: Conflicts of Housebound Mothers'.