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Minding by Chris Paling

Fiction.
Published May 2007.
Paperback original (198 x 129mm).
£7.99.
272 pages.
ISBN: 978 1 84627 079 6


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One of Britain's most distinguished novelists comes to Portobello with a book that takes him into compelling and tender new territory: the story of a young mother and her son - kept apart by mental illness, brought back together by love.

Now that Billy lives with his new foster family, he and his mother, Jane, only get to see each other four times a year. These brief visits are all Billy dreams of and they're the reason why Jane struggles to get up every day, to keep her flat tidy, and to behave in the way she's learned that other people consider 'normal'. But as their time together approaches, Jane receives a sudden and violent reminder of her troubled past and ends up missing their appointment. There remains one possibility that they can be with each other again - but this will mean evading the authorities and finally confronting the legacy of Jane's own damaged childhood.