Our Mother's House

Very odd 1963 novel; when Mother dies, her seven children resolve to bury her in the garden to avoid being sent to the orphanage. With her savings and a weekly cheque, they muddle along in a grim, comfortless world; Mother's presence is even invoked in a "tabernacle" they construct in the garden, presided over by the mystical second-eldest, Diana...
But outsiders are never far away: a teacher, a runaway child, a nosy "char"...and a one-time boyfriend of Mother (the children's recollections of her hymn-singing and virtue don't seem to be the whole picture.) And then Hubert, finding a letter from Mother's long lost husband, writes imploring him to return...
The childen are very individually drawn, but they remained pretty weird and show more unknowable. It's quite a compelling tale, but seemed to lack that human touch, and came to a sudden and rather unsatisfying end.
Ian McEwan's "The Cement Garden" has a very similar theme and he was, I read, accused of plagiarising Gloag's work. show less

I read this book this month because, well, I was living in my mother’s house after her death.
Originally published in 1963, this was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager in the sixties.

In pre-internet days, books were harder to find, even though I was enjoying the adult library lending privilege of six books at a time. And it was rarer still for me to own a book and this, being definitely an adult book with child protagonists, made me feel grown-up while still identifying with the kids. So, it was a favourite even though it really isn’t all that good.

In 1960s London, not wanting to be put in an orphanage and split up, a family of seven children bury their mother (dead of natural causes) in the backyard and say that she is show more too sick to receive visitors. Shades of The Death of Bees, but darker.

I gather this was made into a 1967 film by British director Jack Clayton. 3½ stars show less

minor age wear to DJ, but VG overall