Description

Winner of John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The Millstone is a radical celebration of the mother-child relationship. It is the Swinging Sixties, and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienced at a time when sexual liberation is well on its way. She conceals her ignorance beneath a show of independence, and becomes pregnant as a result of a one-night stand. Although single parenthood is still not socially acceptable, she chooses to have the baby rather than to seek an illegal abortion, and finds her life transformed by motherhood.

‘Rosamund is marvellous, a true Drabble heroine’ – Sunday Times

Publisher Review

I have learned so much from Margaret Drabble's work. Her prose is very beautiful, very funny, and at the same time very serious. Novels like The Millstone and Jerusalem the Golden have helped me to understand what great writing can be -- SALLY ROONEY A beautiful book - and a momentous one * * Guardian * * The novelist who will have done for late twentieth-century London what Dickens did for Victorian London * * New York Times * * A timeless fable about the condition of womanhood . . . Drabble's vision of woman's fate remains challenging, controversial, relevant and profound -- ELAINE SHOWALTER Rosamund is marvellous, a true Drabble heroine * * Sunday Times * * The Millstone is a delight and Rosamund Stacey a witty, candid chronicler * * Daily Express * * Wry and witty * * New Republic * * The novel is a paean for motherhood * * Guardian * * The Millstone illuminated a path that could lead forwards a future * * Irish Times * * She writes not about exemplary women, but about real ones * * New York Times * *