A reluctant mother : a novel

Summary: Honest, sometimes humorous and often tragic, Frida's narrative tells a modern tale of a conflagration of deceit, adultery, regret and love. Frida, childless by choice, is an artist with a tragic childhood history. When she agrees to allow her husband's spurious daughter into their lives they are devastatingly changed forever. Frida tells her story while confined to a hospital bed where a very young lawyer relentlessly pushes for a recounting of events. Frida's memory, though often faulty and sporadic, comes back to her in poignant scenes that she is forced to relive, each alarming act leading to yet another even more ill-advised. In Frida, Deirdre Simon Dore's evocative writing has created a difficult, blunt and vitally genuine "reluctant mother." A contemporary novel of a woman whose relationships are an exercise in hilarity and tragedy both.