Mothering Sunday: A Romance takes place on
Britain’s mothers day in 1924. World War I claimed many sons who
would have honored mothers. Twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild is
a maid for an upper-class family whose two sons died. Although she
has no mother to visit, Jane has the day off. Her employers will
be lunching at a restaurant with a neighboring family that also
lost two sons in the war. That family’s only remaining child,
Paul, who is soon to marry a woman of his class, has been Jane’s
secret lover for seven years. Alone in the family mansion, he
telephones Jane to join him. It is the first time they have sex in
his bedroom instead of in fields and stables.
What transpires the rest of the day will change Jane’s life in
unexpected ways, leading to her becoming a novelist. As Swift
moves from that fateful day to the elderly Jane’s reflections, we
see how Jane, against all odds, was able to use life circumstances
and events to seed her vocation.
Mothering Sunday is short but complex, written in the third
person with Jane’s the only point of view. A master of ambiguity,
Swift gives readers the facts of what happened that pivotal Sunday
and lets us interpret them.
Intriguing as well are the insights Swift gives into the writing
vocation. The orphan Jane turns coming from nothing into a clean
slate for invention. Service as a maid hones a sharp observation.
Misfortunate and grief are ground up and become inspiration. What
a storyteller leaves out is as important as what to put in.
Although Swift titled his book A Romance, it is as also
essentially a contemplation of writing.
Whether viewed as an actual romance or a romance with words, Mothering
Sunday is a beautifully executed book.
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