In My Mother's Shoes

"Over the last three years, since I left the office, clutching my department store voucher and bouquet of flowers, I have had ample time to ponder, in snatched moments, why I've chosen this life. And, why in the 21st century, I am doing more or less the same things as my mother and grandmother did before me. As I learn more about myself as a mother, I've begun to want to understand them better, now that I am in their shoes. "

Thus Alison Walsh ponders her escape from the 9-5 office life she juggled with mothering her three children to embrace the freelance life, which - in theory - would enable her to become the Best Mother in the World. In reality, though, she - like so many of us - finds herself patching life - and motherhood - together as she goes along. Like her mother and her grandmother, she is, in the end, just a mother, with flaws aplenty. Clear-eyed, touching, forthright and funny, The Patchwork Mother is her account of three generations of Irish motherhood - her Nana, leading light of the Irish Countrywomen's Association, indomitable in all things except deferring to her husband; her mother, whose glamorous career as a 1960s air hostess was cut cruelly short by the simple act of getting married; and, Alison herself, a modern woman whose life would not be thwarted by such lack of choice. Or would it?