The Mother

From the Walkley Award winning journalist, social commentator and author comes a gripping domestic thriller with a moral dilemma at its core.

Just like the garden, the fuse box, the bills, bin night and blown light bulbs, this was just something else she’d now have to take care of herself.

In response to escalating and almost daily media reports of incidents of horrifying family violence, feminist icon and fearless commentator Jane Caro has written a stunning novel that asks what any of us might do when faced with a threat to the people we hold most dear.

Miriam Duffy is a respectable North Shore widow, real estate agent and devoted mother and grandmother. She was thrilled when her younger daughter, Ally, married her true love, but as time goes by Miriam watches in disbelief and growing fear as Ally’s perfect husband starts controlling her and their children, and cutting them off from the rest of the world. As the situation escalates and the law proves incapable of protecting them, Miriam is faced with an unthinkable decision. But she will do anything for the people she loves most in the world. Wouldn’t you?

Jane Caro: ‘The idea for this novel came to me fully formed. I was haunted by the image of a bereft older woman, head in her hands, after I saw her in a photo with her family who had become the victims of a horrendous domestic homicide. It was this image that gave me the idea for a book about a mother’s revenge…

‘I am the grandmother of two small children aged two and four. I love them intensely and feel extremely protective towards them. As I looked at the photo I began to imagine how I would feel if my daughter and grandchildren were living in abject fear of the husband and father who claimed to love them. What would I do?’