Motherwell - Deborah Orr

DEBORAH ORR was an award-winning journalist, whose work regularly appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, the Sunday Times and in many magazines including Vogue, Grazia and Marie Claire. She was a contributing editor to Another Magazine and was the first female editor of the Guardian's Weekend Magazine at the age of thirty. Deborah was a co-creator of 'Enquirer', a play commissioned by the National Theatre of Scotland, performed in London, Glasgow and Belfast, broadcast by Radio 4 and shortlisted for new play of the year in the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland.

Searching, truthful, shocking (and timely) . . . with a reporter's skill, she shows the interior life of her people. In the present climate, this book should be given out on the NHS . . . a masterpiece
GUARDIAN - Andrew O'Hagan

Sharply intelligent and utterly unsentimental, MOTHERWELL is a fitting legacy left by a blazing talent
OBSERVER

Raw, compelling, wise and tender
DOLLY ALDERTON

MOTHERWELL is razor-sharp, fearless and wonderful
ADAM KAY

An outstanding memoir . . . The writing is powerful and muscular; the bitterness raw and furious . . . as a legacy, this book will stand at least as long as Ravenscraig
SPECTATOR

A fierce and tender reckoning: personal, political, and blazing with truth
MELISSA HARRISON

Crammed with wit and intelligence . . . a clever, meticulous and intricate work. Although heart-rending at times, it is also surprisingly funny . . . has a generosity of tone that means as you read it you experience sudden flashes from your own past: slights, plights, triumphs, mad asides
THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Utterly candid and staggeringly good, both as the history of a woman and the history of a place
INDIA KNIGHT

A poignant, beautiful and all-too-topical memoir. With the skill, delicacy and sharp wit her many fans know and love, Deborah Orr tells her tale of childhood: of class and mobility, of self-love and self-loathing, of dissatisfied mother and clever daughter, and of the dangerous, complex sacrifices which opportunity demands from a girl on the move in the late twentieth century. Are you a mother? Do/did you have a mother? Read it
LOUISA YOUNG

If you have or had a difficult mother this is the book for you. Difficult doesn't have to mean abusive. You can have a happy childhood with a mother who drives you mad
LINDA GRANT

Filled with observational brilliance and wit . . . beautiful. Brilliant . . . not just an intelligent and honest personal memoir, not just an examination of narcissism, interdependence and repression, but a conjuring of a time, a moment in British history, that may otherwise be lost entirely. It is also funny. As funny, it would seem from the obituaries, as the woman herself
DAILY TELEGRAPH

Honest, at times harsh, but also deeply tender and very funny - this is a beautifully written memoir. It's my generation so evoked many unwanted memories including the three-day-week, boiled to death veg and masturbating skinheads. A great read for 'Common People' like me
KATHY BURKE

MOTHERWELL is a story about a girl, a family, a time, a place. But so much more. Fearlessly Deborah Orr works out how she was formed as she unpicks everyday dysfunction. Full of glinting pain, brilliant one liners and utter clarity, the sliver of ice in her heart melts. Sheer humanity shines out. I was astonished
SUZANNE MOORE

Deborah's honest and fearless spirit shines throughout MOTHERWELL. Her many struggles are told with wit and candour, but above all there is so much love in this book
COSEY FANNI TUTTI

Complex and moving, this is an honest take on the close ties that can bind, hold us back and also set us free
STYLIST - Best New Books of 2020

[Orr's] masterpiece . . . the story of her family but also a social commentary of Britain . . . a fascinating look into the childhood of one of our most important journalists
EVENING STANDARD

Intense and moving
RED

A remarkable memoir, the candour of it . . . Having grown up working-class in Scotland, there are a lot of resonances
THE i NEWSPAPER

Love and understanding triumph over the difficult and painful memories. It is disconcertingly honest and self-revealing. You are unlikely to forget it
THE SCOTSMAN

A complex study of a family, childhood, and a town transformed
THE ARTS DESK

Brilliant . . . An excellent and timely slice of social reportage
METRO

A beautifully written portrait of a quintessential Seventies working-class childhood
NEW STATESMAN

Bold, clear-eyed and often very funny
RADIO TIMES

A remarkable book . . . impassioned, angry, tender, pathetic, honest to a fault. MOTHERWELL is written at such a pitch of intensity you sometimes have to put it down just to get your breath back
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