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Born in Skipton, Yorkshire, Blake Morrison is the author of the bestselling memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, two novels, South of the River and The Last Weekend, and a study of the Bulger case, As If. He is also a poet, critic, journalist and librettist. He teaches Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College, and lives in south London.
This is an unusual and touching companion to Morrison's And When Did You Last See Your Father, an unconventional and hugely successful memoir which sold over 100,000 copies. In that book Morrison's mother was a silent figure, a chameleon who consistently sought to blend in as a conventional wife and mother, but who in reality was anything but. This startling account uncovers her secrets, demonstrating how Agnes O'Shea, Irish Roman Catholic and newly qualified doctor, gradually reinvented herself to become Kim Morrison, an English country wife and GP. It charts her years working in a succession of British hospitals during the Second World War, during which time she met and fell in love with Arthur Morrison. The tale of her transformation is told through the hilarious, passionate and disarmingly honest letters of their tempestuous wartime romance, from the hospitals of Manchester to the RAF camps of Azores. As always, Morrison keeps the reader with him as he relentlessly searches for answers to questions that beset him, constantly uncovering new possibilities. He is engagingly frank, yet instinctively knows when the boundaries of privacy and respect have been reached. He manages somehow to draw his mother out of herself, bit by bit, until a quietly determined, sensitive and courageous figure emerges. Morrison skilfully dodges the trap of getting too bogged down with detail and conveys a vivid picture of family conflict and a surprising view of the struggle of wartime romance, depression, and above all, the soaring heights and plunging depths of love. (Kirkus UK)
