Motherwell

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

MAIL ON SUNDAY

Searing, candid, magnificently perceptive and lingeringly tragic. A modern classic

DAILY MAIL

Vivid, visceral, uncompromising, electrifying in its candour

i

Raw, beautiful and truly insightful

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Completely amazing

STYLIST

MOTHERWELL is an unflinching memoir of one family and a lost world. It is also an extended essay on how not to mother well and the terrible legacy that can leave

DAILY EXPRESS

Sharp, funny, warm and memorable

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

Dauntless, quietly devastating, but not without seams of happiness and magnificent wit

THE HERALD (Glasgow)