The Wild Track

adopting, mothering, belonging

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'A remarkable book...wise and arresting' Sarah Winman

'Exquisite... a deeply insightful memoir which charts our fundamental longings for place and identity, and ultimately our yearnings for love.' Helena Kennedy

Single, in her mid-forties and having experienced a sudden early menopause, a realisation comes to Peggy quietly, and clearly: she decides to adopt a child. But the preparation is arduous and the scrutiny intense. There are questions about past lives, about capability and expectations.

Asking big questions about identity and belonging, as well as about what makes a mother - and a home - this is a beautiful meditation on how the legacies of childhood might be overcome by a mother's determination to love.

'Extremely moving...an unusually thoughtful take on becoming a mother, enabled by removing babyhood and biology.' Guardian

Exquisite. Beautifully written, The Wild Track is a deeply insightful memoir which charts displacement and our fundamental longings for place and identity and ultimately our yearnings for love.
Helena Kennedy

About Margaret Reynolds

Margaret Reynolds is a writer, academic, critic and broadcaster. Her critical edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh won the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay prize. Other books include The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories, The Sappho Companion, Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology (with Angela Leighton) and a series of study guides on contemporary writers, Vintage Living Texts. She is Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's long running 'Adventures in Poetry'.

Details

Imprint: Penguin
Published: 24/02/2022
ISBN: 9781529176612
Length: 320 pages
Dimensions: 198mm x 19mm x 127mm
Weight: 220g
Price: £9.99

All editions

The Wild Track

adopting, mothering, belonging

Format:

Buy the book from:

Exquisite. Beautifully written, The Wild Track is a deeply insightful memoir which charts displacement and our fundamental longings for place and identity and ultimately our yearnings for love.

This memoir is a triumph; an extraordinarily wise and rich analysis of what it means to belong, to a place and to beloved others. Deeply moving, richly allusive, surprising and thought-provoking, The Wild Track deserves to be one of the great successes of 2021.

A remarkable book. Wise and arresting in its candour.

Enlightening...The Wild Track is a passionate, heartfelt exploration of a woman who wants to be a mother. I found it utterly compelling.

A beautiful memoir, The Wild Track tells an adoption story less traditional than some.

A personal, immersive read...Part memoir, part exploration of what drives a woman to become a mother, it tracks Margaret's journey through the adoption process in her mid-forties in a compelling, honest account.

A meditative and searching literary memoir.

About Margaret Reynolds

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