REVIEW: The Other Mothers by Katherine Faulkner
When a young nanny is found dead in mysterious circumstances, new mom, Tash, is intrigued. She has been searching for a story to launch her career as a freelance journalist. But she has also been searching for something else—new friends to help her navigate motherhood.
She sees them at her son’s new playgroup. The other mothers. A group of sleek, sophisticated women who live in a neighborhood of tree-lined avenues and stunning houses. The sort of mothers Tash herself would like to be. When the mothers welcome her into their circle, Tash discovers the kind of life she has always dreamt of—their elegant London townhouses a far cry from her cramped basement flat and endless bills. She is quickly swept up into their wealthy world via coffees, cocktails, and playdates.
But when another young woman is found dead, it’s clear there’s much more to the community than meets the eye. The more Tash investigates, the more she’s led uncomfortably close to the other mothers. Are these women really her friends? Or is there another, more dangerous reason why she has been so quickly accepted into their exclusive world? Who, exactly, is investigating who?
I read the author’s debut Greenwich Park last year and gave it a B+, though in my recollection it’s a little lower, probably a B. Still, I liked the book well enough to request this, Faulkner’s second book. It covers some of the same themes as Greenwich Park and has some similar issues as well.
The story is told in alternating chapters by Natasha (Tash) and Sophie. Tash is a youngish married journalist (her husband Tom is hospital resident) with a two-year-old son, Finn. Since giving birth, Tash has felt her career slipping away – she is trying to freelance but finding it hard to break in; she’d previously been with a newspaper. Tash is also a bit at sea in her personal life – motherhood has put a predictable strain on her in a variety of ways, and also, money is tight. (I guess NHS doctors make considerably less than their American counterparts.)
It wasn’t clear to me how the “other mothers” of the title ended up in the same playgroup as Tash and Finn – I would presume that they would have enrolled their tots in expensive and prestigious preschools, but again, this may be a “it’s different in the UK” thing.
But they are in the same playgroup, and Tash particularly notices the three of them: Claire, a waifish and delicate blonde; Nicole, a sharp and acerbic American (Nicole is so unpleasant I sort of took it personally as a fellow countrywoman), and Laura, who it turns out is a doctor at Tom’s hospital. The trio, apparently inseparable since birthing classes, invite Tash into their group and she quickly finds herself drawn to their comparatively glamorous lives.
At the same time, a woman comes to Tash about an article that she wrote – a short piece about a young woman that drowned in a local nature reserve. The authorities had ruled it an accident. The woman is Jane, mother of the dead woman, Sophie. Jane doesn’t believe Sophie’s death was accidental, and she wants Tash to look into it.
Tash is mildly intrigued, if skeptical. But then she discovers that Sophie was a nanny for Claire for a period of time leading up to her death.
One thing that frustrated me about Tash was that for a reporter, she is surprisingly reticent about investigating, at least early on. At times it feels like most of the clues about Sophie’s death that move the story forward kind of fall into Tash’s lap, rather than being a result of hard investigative work on her part. Sure, she works to get Sophie’s recovered phone working, but she doesn’t directly confront the various players and ask questions. Instead she skulks around nibbling at the edges of the story. This makes sense for the plot and pacing of the book but doesn’t make Tash look good at her job.
Though to be fair, one could argue that it demonstrates the duality of Tash’s interest in the other mothers – she’s investigating, but she’s also just drawn to their lifestyle and the way those two things overlap while remaining in opposition is one of the central themes of the story. I think my issue has to do with the fact that I read a lot of suspense books that feature a young female protagonist trying to dig up the truth about something. I am ambivalent about how many of the women share certain traits: raging insecurity, an inferiority complex, and a heightened sense that they don’t belong (often having to do with issues of class). The central character in Greenwich Park was very mousy and intimidated by her glamorous sister-in-law.
On the one hand, I understand why so many of these protagonists are the way they are – for one thing, they are meant to be relatable. But the more I read them, the more irritating I find them. Give me a heroine (if we’re calling these women heroines) with some confidence, some competence, some VERVE. I wouldn’t want to read about that type of protagonist all the time either, but I would like some variety.
(I think low-key I was also thinking that Tash’s actions weren’t particularly ethical from a journalistic standpoint; I kind of wish that’d been addressed.)
In the earlier Sophie timeline, she develops an infatuation with Claire’s husband, Jez. Claire is pregnant with the child who ends up being Finn’s contemporary in the later timeline; Sophie is chiefly a caretaker for Jez’s son Jude, whose mother died of cancer shortly after his birth. Jude is a strange child, particularly in the later timeline with Tash. Sophie becomes devoted to him and finds herself in the position of default caretaker of Claire and Jez’s household. Claire becomes more neurotic and reticent before her son’s birth, and afterward clearly suffers from postpartum depression, though it takes a long time for anyone to do anything about it. Meanwhile, Sophie bonds with Claire’s infant, Beau, and increasingly imagines herself in Claire’s place in the household, as wife to Jez and mother to Jude and Beau.
The class issues are intriguing and front and center in The Other Mothers. Sophie finds the idea of going back to the drab lower-middle class life she lived before coming to live in Claire and Jez’s house untenable. Her friend Sal is also a nanny; she cares for the daughter of another mother from the playgroup, Christina. (As an aside, I figured out a biggish twist about Christina fairly early on.) Sal is a bit more hard-bitten than Sophie and she has a fairly cynical attitude toward the wealthy mothers in the group. Later in the story, Sal tries to help Tash with some critical information that may be relevant to Sophie’s death, with tragic results.
Tash appears to have grown up middle-class (her father was a noted photographer who died in Iraq on assignment when she was 15), but she’s not happy with her place in life now – she and Tom both want something better for Finn than their sad little flat in a non-fashionable area without much of a yard. She ends up as drawn as Sophie was to the life that Claire leads, as well as a bit to Claire’s husband, Jez.
I thought The Other Mothers did a good job of laying out enough possible suspects and motives to keep me guessing (except for Christina’s secret, that is – but I wasn’t clear on whether that fit into Sophie’s death or not). The initial ending was a bit unsatisfying. Not because of the resolution of the mystery – that was fine – but because Tash makes some choices that felt not quite true to character (or maybe I just wanted to believe that she had more integrity than she did). Then there’s a whole second ending, with several batshit twists.
(I really overuse the word “batshit” when reviewing suspense, because that’s how these twists feel to me. I’m ambivalent about them – I admit I kind of like the craziness, but I also shake my head at how over-the-top they are.)
The second ending didn’t quite work for me either – there’s a fair amount of moral ambiguity about several characters’ actions and I’m not sure how I felt about it. There’s also a sort of emergent second villain (well, the story actually has quite a few villains), and that character’s villainy, or at least the extent of it, felt out of left field and overblown.
Complaints aside, I really found The Other Mothers a compelling read. I would wake up in the morning wanting to read more of it, and I was even sad that it was ending as the final chapters approached. I’m going to give this an A-/B+, and eagerly look forward to Faulkner’s next book.
Best,
Jennie
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The author must not have or ever had a 2 1/2 year old child. Finn is totally unbelievable. No two year old uses that many complete sentences or that many grown up words. I found it ver distracting.
@Yvonne Kay DeHaan: I didn’t notice that but in retrospect I think you’re right. Finn was a bit annoying to me anyway.