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A review by lilyruby
Every Day is Mother's Day by Hilary Mantel
4.0
There is a lot to enjoy in Mantel's first published novel. Written after A Place of Greater Safety (which was written in the 1970s and then revised for its 1992 publishing date), the novel is a bleak and insightful backwards look on the consequences of the Welfare State in 1970's Britain, and changing views of private property with the spectre of Thatcherite Britain looming.
Labelling the novel, or even Mantel, is not easy and does it disservice: it is not simply gothic, a-novel-about-the-state, or an exploration into Adrienne Rich's ideas of matrophobia and the degradation of family values. It does have a lot to say about how history and abuse haunts the Axons' everyday lives, how it controls their present actions, and how easily they can slip off the historical record if it is being written by social services. The practices of piecing together history is revealed as muddled, politically motivated, actively buried, subject to parodic mimicry (as when Muriel Axon repeats a radio), or simply victim to neglect depending on who exactly is in control of writing that history. What the novel does best is reveal the complicated productions and re-productions of history because of human fallacy: in the public spaces of social services, and in the character's private histories/ writings (special note must be taken on Colin Sidney and Isabela Field's failure to continue their creative writing classes due to their affair). Just as power is the main theme of the novel, so is the almost catholic guilt each character individually feels towards others, and how they should tell their histories. Notably, of the many characters in Mantel's works, Muriel is the most enduring and fascinating.
On the surface the novel is bleak, wry, and the plot is fairly predictable with all the pitfalls of a first published novel from an author that was, at this stage, trying to understand what worked for her. What saves it is the many layers of critical reading, metafictional self-awareness, Mantel's ability to leave no detail (whether it is furnishings, the Axon house, the unhappy lines in the Sidneys' home life) unturned, and its full commitment to the nuances of everyday horrors.
Labelling the novel, or even Mantel, is not easy and does it disservice: it is not simply gothic, a-novel-about-the-state, or an exploration into Adrienne Rich's ideas of matrophobia and the degradation of family values. It does have a lot to say about how history and abuse haunts the Axons' everyday lives, how it controls their present actions, and how easily they can slip off the historical record if it is being written by social services. The practices of piecing together history is revealed as muddled, politically motivated, actively buried, subject to parodic mimicry (as when Muriel Axon repeats a radio), or simply victim to neglect depending on who exactly is in control of writing that history. What the novel does best is reveal the complicated productions and re-productions of history because of human fallacy: in the public spaces of social services, and in the character's private histories/ writings (special note must be taken on Colin Sidney and Isabela Field's failure to continue their creative writing classes due to their affair). Just as power is the main theme of the novel, so is the almost catholic guilt each character individually feels towards others, and how they should tell their histories. Notably, of the many characters in Mantel's works, Muriel is the most enduring and fascinating.
On the surface the novel is bleak, wry, and the plot is fairly predictable with all the pitfalls of a first published novel from an author that was, at this stage, trying to understand what worked for her. What saves it is the many layers of critical reading, metafictional self-awareness, Mantel's ability to leave no detail (whether it is furnishings, the Axon house, the unhappy lines in the Sidneys' home life) unturned, and its full commitment to the nuances of everyday horrors.