Book description
'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, In My Mother's Shoes
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?
'Cheerful, intelligent, funny and shockingly sensible ... Buy it. Read
it. Pass it on' Judith O'Reilly, author of Wife in the North
Alison Walsh lives in Dublin with her husband and their three
children.
