Are You My Mother? [Paperback]

‘An exhilarating emotional ride through love, friendship and loss’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Strong characters, a meaty plot and a satisfyingly unexpected twist transforms Emma’s journey of self-discovery into a very good read’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Utterly believable…Highly emotional…it’s also a complete tear-jerker’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'An uplifting novel, so good you won't want it to end' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Despite being adopted, Emma Victor didn't feel all that different as a child; at least not for the first nine years of her life. Then her adoptive parents had a baby - Stella - of their own. Ten years later they were killed in a car crash - and Emma, aged 19, was left to bring Stella up alone, at an age when she should have been partying, not parenting. Ten years on, Stella has grown up. Now 19, herself, she is beautiful, confident and happy. Emma, however, is in a rut. Her career and love-life are going nowhere fast. Nearly 30, she feels she's not just on the shelf, but in danger of falling off it. But an extraordinary confrontation with a tramp on a tube shakes her from her lethargy, and she starts on a search for her birth mother; a search which, fearful both of what she might find and how it might affect Stella, she has been putting off for years. Are You My Mother? was a book that Emma used to read to Stella, when Stella was a toddler. Now the story of the little lost baby bird and the emotion and pathos of its quest for its mother haunts her as, with the help of her friend Mack, she tracks down five women with the same name; one of whom must be her mother. Emma soon finds however that her search is not so much for her mother but for her own identity. She has spent so long fulfilling roles for other people - daughter, girlfriend, sister, surrogate mother - that she has little idea of who or what she really is. Tentative at first but soon gaining in momentum, her search begins to change her life in more ways than she could possibly have imagined.

From the age of nineteen, Emma Victor has had to bring up her much younger
sister Stella. It has shaped both their lives.

Stella is nearly grown-up now, and needs Emma differently. Emma's nurturing instincts extend to her work as an aromatherapist, and are a part too of her relationship with the unreliable but irresistible Gavin. But something is missing. Emma has to confront her deepest need - a need she's been denying for years - and embark on the search for her birth mother.

Are You My Mother? takes its title from a children's book that Emma used to read to Stella, about a baby bird who, finding his mother gone, feels the panic of abandonment. Profoundly moving and emotionally honest, the novel chronicles Emma's search for her birth mother and her own place in the world, while exploring fundamental questions about the nature of mothering, and the
ties that bind us.

Anyone who's ever felt unsure of where they belong will identify with Emma's plight, and her funny, sad journey towards the discovery of her true sense of self.

'One of the most moving books about friendship I've ever read'
Lisa Jewell on TO BE SOMEONE

Louise Voss has been in the music business for ten years, working for Virgin Records and EMI, and then as a product manager for an independent label in New York. For the last two years she has been Director of Sandie Shaw's company in London. She lives in Teddington with her husband and three-year-old daughter.

'No, don't look right at the camera. Look at me. Just imagine that it's you and me, having a normal chat. It's not an interview. I'm just asking you questions, like a mate would, over a drink. OK? Ready? Right: let's start with you telling me why you've decided to look for your birth mother, after all these years.'
'But you already know that. I told you last week.'
'Emma. Pretend you haven't told me anything yet.'
'Well, I suppose I - um . . . oh, damn it. Sorry.'
'Don't worry about the pauses, I can edit them out afterwards.'
'. . . I'm sorry. I can't get the words out. Didn't I tell you that I'm really . . . what's that word which means you can't speak? Inarticulate. I'm really inarticulate under pressure.'
'Emma, there's no pressure. Ignore the camera.'
'But I don't want to be on TV! Turn it off. I've changed my mind. My rash is coming up. I'll be all blotchy . . .'
'Let's try again in five minutes. I'll make us some coffee.'

but would i ever be able to tell mack about all the things
that mattered, even if he didn't have a digital video camera stuck in my face and a deadline for his commissioned documentary on adoption? The real reasons that, after nearly thirty years and a couple of half-hearted earlier attempts, I'd decided to launch
a proper search for the woman who gave birth to me? I wasn't sure that I even knew myself. I supposed it was the sum of many small parts, some more dramatic than others.
I tried to see if I could list them. Something had happened between me and a homeless man on a tube train. Something even worse happened to my relationship with my boyfriend, Gavin. Something shifted, a subtle slide, between my sister Stella and me. My job was in danger of becoming stale. I was depressed; perhaps I had been for some time. Maybe it was like global warming: the signs had been there for years but we'd all been ignoring them. It was too big, too scary. Of course I'd always been curious about my natural parents - in my situation, who wouldn't have been? But
my yearning had been painted over, again and again, by the simple daily brush strokes of coping; working; bringing up Stella by myself. It was a rhythm which left no room for anything more than idle speculation - there may have been another 'me' underneath the layers, but I just didn't have the time or the emotional resources to strip them off and see. Until now.

'Ready to try again? Take a deep breath.'
'OK. Well, there was this man on the tube a couple of weeks ago, and he reminded me of a book I used to read to Stella when she was little - oh, that doesn't make much sense, does it? Oh hell, I'm even irritating myself here. Sorry. Bet you wish you'd picked someone else for your documentary now.'
'No, Emma, I want it to be you. I told you: you're a survivor, it's a great story. And what we uncover might be even more exciting. However much you waffle at the beginning, that's what'll come across. I know you. Trust me.'

On that day in October, when the man flung himself through the closing doors of my carriage of the tube, I'm sure mine wasn't
the only stomach to give a sudden sick lurch. The faces of all the other passengers registered shadowy panic too, before they hastily dropped their eyes back to their books and newspapers. I delved into my bag for any reading material I could find, which turned out to be a leaflet on how to treat verrucas. I'd picked it up for Stella at the Health Centre last time I was there for the baby-massage class.
As the Central Line train prepared to depart from Shepherd's Bush station, the man started to rock, bouncing from side to side off the red bars which flanked the doors. We could all smell him now, as the nostril-flaring stink of unwashed body crept stealthily around the carriage, an accusatory weapon. I felt myself blush, as if the smell activated the blood rushing to my cheeks.
The man was staring at me, and I blushed even more deeply, feeling the old, hated rash of embarrassment sweep up over my chest and neck. I forced myself to think of something to distract me; to stop me feeling so flustered.
I thought about the twelve massages I'd done that day. I loved being an aromatherapist, but I hated the on-site part of it - it was such hard work. My forearms were getting so muscly that I
was beginning to resemble Popeye.
I glanced up. He was still staring.
Don't look, Emma. Think. Where was I? Oh yes, how nightmarish the on-site clients were. They were mostly surly advertising executives who treated me like something they'd scraped off the bottom of their shoe. I suppose because I found it quite hard to make small talk with strangers, and I didn't naturally have what people call a 'bubbly' personality anyway, they just thought of me as a non-person. They never thanked me at the end of a session, and often carried on doing business while I worked knots out of their sweaty backs, barking dictation at hovering secretaries in muffled voices, their cheeks squashed into the black leatherette doughnut of the massage chair's face rest.