The Girl In The Maze by Cathy Hayward

 

The Girl in the Maze by Cathy Hayward.

Published in ebook 28th October and paperback 25th November 2021 by Agora Books.

From the cover of the book:

Traversing three generations of women torn apart by family trauma, The Girl in the Maze explores the complex relationships and challenges involved in both mothering and being mothered.

‘I would caution you against delving into the past. The past is often best left exactly where it is.’

Emma Bowen has never had a close relationship with her mother, barely speaking with her in the last years of her life. But after her mother’s death, Emma finds something that might just explain the distance between them.

Discovering letters between her mother and grandmother, it seems to Emma that her mother has always been difficult.

As she searches for answers about her own childhood, Emma is drawn into the mystery of her mother’s enigmatic life. The more she finds, the more lost she feels, but Emma is determined to uncover her mother's past, and the secrets held within it, whatever the cost.

An enthralling story of three women, generations apart, linked by one terrible tragedy.

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Emma Bowen has always had a complicated relationship with her mother Margaret: one that fell all too easily into estrangement in the latter years of Margaret's life. Now called upon to sort through the things Margaret has left behind after her death, Emma finds something shocking that gives her a clue about why her mother may have been so distant all these years. When Emma tries to discuss what she has found with her mother's solicitor, a man who has been close to Margaret for much of her life, he is unwilling to divulge what he knows about her past - cautioning her to let sleeping dogs lie.

However, Emma cannot let the matter rest. As she puts together the fragments of Margaret's mysterious past through the letters between her mother and grandmother, she uncovers secrets that have shaped the lives of three generations of her dysfunctional family - secrets that might just hold the key to the meaning behind her mother's enigmatic painting The Girl in the Maze.

"We are shaped by our mothers, and if we lack them we are shaped by that loss."

Told in three narratives from Emma, her grandmother Betty, and her step-grandfather Jack, this is a book that will tear you to emotional shreds. It starts as it means to go on, with a disturbing scene in the tiny bathroom of a cramped London flat in 1937, and follows the history of Margaret's life through the 1950s when the legacy of her mother's shame at being a single mother has terrible consequences for her own future; and then beyond into her own experience as a mother and grandmother to Emma and her children. Cathy Hayward is unflinching in her portrayal of Margaret's life, and much of what is written in these pages is deeply distressing, as the truth is gradually unveiled over the course of the book.

I was unprepared for quite how shocking this book would turn out to be, but am impressed at the way Hayward explores how dysfunctional relationships have a habit of perpetuating themselves through the generations that follow, particularly between mothers and daughters. Themes of shame, guilt, and the thin veneer of respectability run right through the piece, deftly threaded through the lives of the female characters and motivating them to act in ways that are damaging for themselves and others.

This book is beautifully written, displays sharp insight into how and why families become stuck in blighted patterns of behaviour, and touches on a myriad of subjects, many of which I cannot go into for fear of spoilers, including aspects of single-motherhood and adoption from the 1930s onwards. Although there is one voice missing that I really would have liked to hear - that of Margaret herself. Everything we know about Margaret is told to us by others with their own agenda (except in one particularly heartrending scene, where Margaret's words are recorded on paper), and we hear such varied accounts of her depending on who is speaking that she remains an enigma right to the end of the story. I found this rather sad, but it does add to the idea Hayward fosters in this tale that the real lives of our parents remain a mystery to us all, especially once they are gone - something you will be all too aware of if your parents have passed away.

"I read an article once about family dysfunction. It described it as rolling down from generation to generation like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path. It said that you need one person in one generation to have the courage to turn and face the flames."

This is the kind of thought provoking book that is absolute gold for a book club or reading group, because there is so much to delve into about the rights and wrongs here. I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about whether or not Emma was right to try to uncover Margaret's secrets. I think the answer is yes, because although this leaves her with her own burden to carry, she also comes to realise that patterns of behaviour can be changed once you become aware of them, which gives this powerful book a positive message to end on - but I will leave you to read this impressive debut and make up your own minds. 

The Girl in the Maze is available to buy now in ebook, and in paperback from 25th November, from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Agora Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Cathy Hayward trained as a journalist and edited a variety of trade publications, several of which were so niche they were featured on Have I Got News for You. She then moved into the world of PR and set up an award-winning communications agency. Devastated and inspired in equal measure by the death of her parents in quick succession, Cathy completed The Creative Writing Programme with New Writing South out of which emerged her debut novel, The Girl in the Maze, about the experience of mothering and being mothered. It won Agora Books’ Lost the Plot Work in Progress Prize 2020 and was longlisted for the Grindstone Literary Prize 2020. 

When she’s not writing (or reading) in her local library, Cathy loves pottering in second-hand bookshops, hiking and wild camping. She lives in Brighton – sandwiched between the Downs and the sea – with her husband, three children, and two rescue cats – one of whom thinks he’s a dog.