The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell

Tinder Press, 2010

Why?

I’m always glad of an excuse to read Maggie O’Farrell, and this award-winning novel had somehow passed me by until now.

I was drawn in by the promise of two parallel stories, following two women in different time periods as they navigate motherhood alongside complicated love lives and family dynamics.

I grabbed it on the brilliant BookBub, to which I’ve become slightly addicted. It definitely generates additional sales.

Enjoyment factor

As ever with Maggie O’Farrell, the writing is rich, atmospheric and full of colour. She has a remarkable ability to make both characters and settings feel vividly alive, and the two time periods are beautifully realised.

That said, I found this a slightly more uneven read than some of her other novels. The connection between the two narratives felt slow to emerge, and I never quite found myself as emotionally invested in either woman as I wanted to be.

It left me thinking ...

That dual narratives are an ambitious device, and can be difficult to pull off without one thread overshadowing the other.

It also left me thinking about the myriad of ways in which women experience and navigate motherhood, and about the tension between creativity and everyday life, with one heroine an artist and the other a journalist.

Above all, though, it captured London as a place of opportunity: a city where reinvention feels possible, and where life does not have to follow a conventional script. Throughout the novel, London plays a subtle but important role as catalyst.