A poignant telling of the legacies of mothering
Mother Shadow is a meditation on what it means to be a 'good mother' where two women – separated by continents and time but connected by blood – each find themselves enchained by social and personal forces that seek to limit them. The book blends a reimagining of the life of a 19th century unmarried peasant woman from Bologna who abandons her daughter to a foundling home – institutions known as slaughterhouses for the babies who died there – with present day reflection on the challenges of mothering with a disability.
Mother Shadow opens with the uncovering of a family secret. The author's great-grandmother was not an orphan, as she'd been told, but a foundling, relinquished at birth by a mother who 'did not consent to be named'. The discovery of the abandoned baby in her maternal line triggers a passionate and indignant reaction as she asks: what kind of a mother would relinquish her child? It also triggers a painful personal memory of the day she dropped her baby after falling backwards in her wheelchair and realised her worst fear. That her broken body, permanently injured in a plane crash in her early 30s, could not be trusted to protect her baby.
Troubled by her rush to judgement of her ancestor, the author becomes fixated on uncovering the mother's identity and piecing together the fragments of her life, a quest that takes her and her family to Bologna. As she comes to understand the series of tragic events that compelled her ancestor to abandon her baby, she wonders if the compulsion to make sense of the woman's act is linked to the overwhelming sense of inadequacy that haunts her because she is unable to mother according to the standards she has set for herself.
It turns out that Bologna, a city of porticoes with their smooth, flecked mortadella-like walkways, is the perfect city for a mother in a wheelchair and her scooter loving six-year-old.
'Stories about mothers and children are powerful. They are stories about love, about the gentleness (and cruelty) and resilience (and weakness) of human beings, and the enduring hope that connects generations. [Banham's] rich description of centuries-old Italian city streetscapes creates an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The story draws you in and doesn't let go as clues about her search for her Italian great-grandmother arrive at a steady pace. I was on edge to the very end in anticipation of what was going to happen next.' -Moreno Giovannoni
'What kind of mother abandons her child? In her tireless quest to understand her great-grandmother's unfathomable act, Cynthia Banham unearths a story shaped by crushing limitations and agonising choices. Her rich and sensitive narrative wrestles with the complexities of motherhood and inheritance with immense courage, clarity and compassion.' -Nadine Davidoff
'Mother Shadow begs the question: what does maternal agency truly look like? The fragmented form of the book creates a structural seamlessness between times, continents, and the question of what it is both to mother and be mothered. Banham's meticulous and poetic attention to details real and imagined draw the reader into temporal scenes of nature, street and landscape, evoking a sense of timelessness across ages. Within it, the possibility of understanding, recognition and reconciliation between generations of women opens. These superbly written meditations are at times heartbreaking, always fascinating, and ultimately uplifting.' -Lee Kofman
'Extraordinary! Cynthia Banham writes with such precision and elegance. Mother Shadow is a detective thriller, a richly detailed memoir, a transnational family history and a moving account of maternal love, told with unrelenting self-scrutiny and grace. I couldn't put it down!' -Roanna Gonsalves
