Marcella Edwards
Unconventional Unions
The Hand that First Held Mine
By Maggie O’Farrell
Headline Review 352pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
Maggie O’Farrell’s fifth novel, The Hand that First Held Mine, confronts the difficulties and wonders of motherhood. Through the lives of two women, Lexie and Elina, living a generation apart, a story of abandonment and unexpected joy spools out across London.
O’Farrell’s detail is excellent. Each life – Lexie’s in the Fifties and Sixties and Elina’s in the Noughties – is painted as intricately as a miniature. However, while her focus is acute, her chapters are often frustratingly short: for the first half of the book, it’s hard to
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