REVIEW: Mother and Child by Annie Murray (ARC)

Mother and Child by Annie Murray

Genre: Women's Fiction

Read: 21st October 2019

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Purchase: Amazon

(publication: 17th October 2019)

★ 1 star

I chose MOTHER AND CHILD for it's cover and the wonderful historical author Annie Murray. So I was surprised to find upon reading it, that this book is not the usual historical type of fiction Annie Murray normally writes. In fact, it's not really in the historical vein I even read...and therefore I couldn't really get into the story, as sad and as tragic as it was.

I also found the cover to be somewhat misleading as it portrays an historical war to post-war era...which is what I thought I was going to read. Instead it is something completely different.

We begin the story in 2014 with Jo and Ian, whose marriage is barely surviving after the sudden and tragic death of their only adopted son Paul by a joyrider two years before. The driver barely shows any remorse with crocodile tears and the couple now find it hard to move with their lives. They move closer to Ian's mother Dorrie, who is aging and somewhat frail, and Jo begins to spend a lot of time with her mother-in-law whilst Ian appears to have become a workaholic.

Forever haunted by the death of her son, Jo is shocked to see a picture of a boy in a magazine who closely resembles her son and reads about the tragic Bhopal disaster in India, which severely impacted his life.

On its own, the story is of tragedy, loss and grief. But then along with the tale is the true story of the Bhopal disaster, a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. This was considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster with at least 30 tons of a highly toxic gas called methyl isocyanate, as well as a number of other poisonous gases being released. The pesticide plant was surrounded by shanty towns, leading to more than 600,000 people being exposed to the deadly gas cloud that night. The gases stayed low to the ground, causing victims throats and eyes to burn, inducing nausea, and many deaths. Estimates of the death toll vary from as few as 3,800 to as many as 16,000, but government figures now refer to an estimate of 15,000 killed over the years. Toxic material remains, and 30 years later, many of those who were exposed to the gas have given birth to physically and mentally disabled children.

For me, it bears a striking resemblance to Chernobyl, the worst radioactive disaster in the Ukraine also in the 1980s.

As sad and as tragic as this story is, it was not for me. I couldn't connect to anyone and didn't much like Jo. But it is highly commendable of Annie Murray to write using this tragedy and donate all proceeds from the sales of this book to the Bhopal Medical appeal, which provides free treatment for victims of the Bhopal gas leak in 1984 and the toxic water left by the Union Carbide Corporation.

While this book was not to my taste, there would be many who would enjoy it. I feel awful at not being one of them. There is obviously a lot of research gone into such a tragic disaster and the hard work that ensued in bringing it to life in MOTHER AND CHILD.  I, for one, knew nothing of this disaster, so thank you Ms Murray for making us aware of what happened on that tragic fateful night.

I would like to thank #AnnieMurray, #NetGalley and #PanMacmillian for an ARC of #MotherAndChild in exchange for an honest review.