Fiction by Kelly Rimmer
In 1957 Grace Walsh has four children under four, and she's not coping well. Her husband Patrick is gone all the time, and Grace has no one to talk to. She starts to write about her struggles with what the reader recognizes as postpartum depression, getting her feelings out in a series of notes.
In 1996 Grace's youngest daughter Beth is also struggling with the adjustment to being a first-time mother. Cleaning out her parents' house, after her father has been hospitalized for dementia, Beth finds some of those notes. Beth knows her mother died young, but can remember very little about her.
This story is about what really happened to Grace, and also about the differences and similarities of the experience of motherhood in the two time periods. Women came a long way in those forty years, but somethings are always going to be difficult.
This was a good story that gave me a lot to think about.
I also read recently by this author: The Things We Cannot Say
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