are things better now?

Claire Lynch: A Family Matter. 2025 

A mother following her heart. A father with the law on his side. A child caught in the middle.

Today is the Minna Canth´s day in Finland. It wants to bring up, to light, the eqality matter, the equality between sexes in the society, in life both private and public.

I think, for some parts, this book goes well with that theme.

This is placed in England, in both years 1986 and 2022. There is Dawn, a mother of Maggie and a wife to Heron. She falls madly in love with Hazel, a teacher who moves to the village. Their (secret, forbidden) love separates Dawn from her daughter.

Back then, 1982, a lesbian mother was denied off her rights for her daughter (and a child was denied of her rights to her mother ). Then 40 years go by, in 2022, Maggie, the daughter still lives unaware of the truths. She never asks questions from her dad and he, now trying to cope with his cancer, sick, never told her and that, for me, was a bit unrealistic. Now, in 2022, with father being sick, the secrets start to unravel

I liked this book. I liked the matter that is based on actual factual laws and it was actually real life (sadly, wrongly!) that there was separation between lesbian mothers and their children. I liked that all this could have happened in real life. I hope the law is different now, the rights could be a bit more equal (authors´s words in the last pages highly appreciated!) and for the story, I missed the lives between the forty years between. How did the girl feel during those years, how did the mother, the father. Why there were no questions during those years, why the father did not tell her grown daughter, a mother herself, too. How was the life for this young lesbian couple during those years. We saw glimpses but I thought there could have been more flesh to the bone.

Still, a very good book.