The Wild Track

The Wild Track

adopting, mothering, belonging

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

How to find an outlet for a love that demands expression? Single, in her mid-forties and having experienced a sudden early menopause, the realisation comes to Peggy quietly, and clearly; she decides to adopt a child. But the preparation is arduous and the scrutiny is intense. There are questions about past lives, about her own childhood, heritage, capabilities, expectations and identity.

This is a book about what makes a mother, and a home; how the legacies of childhood may impact on the experience of parenting; and how the pervasive nature of childhood trauma might be faced by a mother's determination to love.

© Margaret Reynolds 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Reviews

  • 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 the author

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'.
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