Mother: A Memoir by Nicholas Royle

Before the devastating ‘loss of her marbles’, Mrs Royle, a nurse by profession, is a marvellously no-nonsense character, an autodidact who reads widely and voraciously, swears at her fox-hunting neighbours, and instils in the young Nick a love of literature and of wildlife that will form his character and his career.

In this touching, funny and beautifully written portrait of family life, mother-son relationships and bereavement, Nicholas Royle captures the spirit of post-war parenting as well as of his mother whose dementia and death were triggered by the tragedy of losing her other son—Royle’s younger brother—to cancer in his twenties.

At once poetic and philosophical, this extraordinary memoir is also a powerful reflection on climate crisis and ‘mother nature’, on literature and life writing, on human and non-human animals, and on the links between the maternal and memory itself.

‘A metafictional fever dream.’ The Guardian

‘It is in those commonplace moments at the end of a life…moments which Nicholas Royle describes with such piercingaccuracy, when this novel is truly at its strangest.’ Times Literary Supplement

‘An ambitious and far-reaching work that tackles many subjects…but most of all, it’s about language: how vocabulary, tone, emphasis, linguistic provenance, double meanings, even rhythm define the way we consume every aspect of life… It’s also sexy, funny and, in quieter moments, very touching. There is heartfelt writing here…we come to think about the nature of love, and about our taking for granted the world beyond language; the sea, the sky, and the birds. Marvellous..’ Big Issue