Tangled Web UK Review November 2009
The Mother's Tale by
Camilla Noli
pbk out November 09
(Orion)
at £9.99
A chilling first-person narration, where the central character is a successful career woman now stuck at home with small children. The story coveys clearly the isolation, frustration and mind-numbing reality that child-care can bring. Noli’s depiction of power struggles between an exhausted parent and a willful toddler ring true. Some women are not by nature maternal or nurturing and The Mother’s Tale takes this issue and pushes it to the extreme by placing a psychopath, practiced in the art of manipulation and deception, unerringly selfish and completely amoral at the heart of the story. Thus the way the narrative unfolds will soon destroy any empathy we might have for the central character and we read on with morbid fascination. There is acute tension sustained in seeing whether the woman will be found out and pay for her crime. The Mother’s Tale is a fluently written debut novel which for some may be beyond the pale because of its difficult subject matter. Thought provoking and disturbing it may prompt wider debate amongst readers about mothering and the hard graft of childcare and about women who transgress the most fundamental taboo.
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries and the series creator of TV Blue Murder)
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