{"product_id":"mother-country-isbn-9781844676576","title":"Mother Country","description":"When Jeremy Harding was a child, his mother, Maureen, told him he was adopted. She described his natural parents as a Scandinavian sailor and a “little Irish girl” who worked in a grocery. It was only later, as Harding set out to look for traces of his birth mother, that he began to understand who his adoptive mother really was—and the benign make-believe world she built for herself and her little boy. Evoking a magical childhood spent in transit between west London and a decrepit houseboat on the banks of the River Thames, \u003ci\u003eMother Country\u003c\/i\u003e is both a detective quest, as Harding searches through the public records for clues about his natural mother, and a rich social history of a lost London from the 1950s. \u003ci\u003eMother Country\u003c\/i\u003e is a powerful true story about a man looking for the mother he had never known and finding out how little he understood the one he had grown up with.“Harding is a conjurer. Give him a long-since demolished stairwell, and he’ll give you a world—its sound, its smell, the feeling that you could stumble upon it still.”—Rachel Cooke, \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stunning.”—Amanda Heller, \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Beautifully written, funny and sad, this book is simply captivating.”—Cressida Connolly, \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fluid and invigorating ... a delicate and absorbing account of Harding’s investigation into the circumstances of his adoption.”—John Palattella, \u003ci\u003eNation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Harding’s story is that of an adopted boy growing up in London, and his decision later to search for his natural mother. Readers get a detailed chronicle of the search and its ramifications, turning up hidden facets of the family Harding thought he knew.”—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An able, imaginative work of kinship and family.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Its colorful, insightful revelations about his adoptive parents and compelling discoveries about his birth mother give this slender memoir a special magic and beauty that will grip the reader long after the final page is turned.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJeremy Harding\u003c\/b\u003e is a contributing editor at the \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. His books include \u003ci\u003eThe Uninvited: Refugees at the Rich Man’s Gate\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSmall Wars, Small Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eMother Country\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302416273637,"sku":"NP9781844676576","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781844676576.jpg?v=1767732995","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/mother-country-isbn-9781844676576","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}