This is a pleasant light read of growing up in Ireland
during the 1980s and making mistakes. Mothers, daughters,
and granddaughters are the focus and by modern day yet
another generation has been added in WITH ALL MY LOVE.
Briony McAllister, surviving the current recession, finds a
letter in an old photo album - addressed to herself, though
she never received it. Her grandmother had written to her
hoping to restore contact. Briony confronts her mother
Valerie Harris and the tale comes out at last. Valerie
and her boyfriend Jeff Egan, a medical student, found that
they were expecting a baby, but Ireland at the time was
very conservative and they would be the talk of the
village. Valerie and her father were already on bad terms
and her mother was meek. Jeff's mother had hoped for
a better class of wife for her precious son so unusually
did not encourage the young pair to marry, saying Jeff
should concentrate on qualifying first. Valerie, who had an
office job, moved to busy Dublin to have the baby and rear
her daughter in the 1980s. While this meant she was not
subjected to gossip, and little Briony to stigma, there was
at that time no lone-parent support and she had to continue
working. She cut off communication with Jeff's parents
after an unpleasant scene and the situation remained uneasy
for everyone.
Most of the book is taken up with memories of the times,
the young people going to a Queen concert, having a whirl
in Dublin, the different family situations. Valerie and
Briony feel their relationship shattered when the truth
Valerie had concealed comes out and Briony realises she has
been missing out on knowing her grandparents. Now it is up
to Briony to make decisions that could change the nature of
her own child's future.
Patricia Scanlan has written many novels of Irish women's
life starting with City Girl and while her earlier works
dealt with coming of age and succeeding, or bouncing back
after a devastating marriage breakup, this more
contemplative tale focuses on family connections across the
generations and marriage boundaries. I did feel that the
last quarter was somewhat repetitive, and could have done
with tighter editing. But this author's many fans will
doubtless be pleased to get their hands on WITH ALL MY LOVE.
A heartwarming novel about a shocking discovery that forever
changes the lives of three generations of women.
When Briony McAllister takes a trip to visit her mother,
Valerie, she uncovers a letter from her long-lost
grandmother, bringing to light a nearly unforgivable act her
mother has kept secret for decades. Having always believed
that her grandparents didn’t want to see her, she finds that
the opposite is true: her grandmother had been seeking her
out all along, and it was her own mother who willfully kept
them apart.
Devastated that her past has come back to haunt her, Valerie
realizes that her daughter’s anger might cause their
troubled family history to repeat itself in a new
generation. Rich with emotion and featuring magnificent
descriptions of Ireland, With All My Love deftly weaves the
stories of the past and present to take us into the heart of
a family at war. As the truth is revealed, so too are the
complex yet enduring bonds between mothers and daughters.
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