Julie Myerson

Babes in the wood

I began Kit de Waal’s well-meaning new novel full of hope, says Julie Myerson, but felt vaguely cheated by the end

issue 07 April 2018

Mona — single, childless, pushing 60 — sells wooden dolls made by a carpenter friend, which she delicately costumes from odds and ends of fabric sourced in charity shops. But her business has an odd spin-off: mothers who’ve suffered past stillbirths can come and ‘order’ a lump of carved wood made to the specified birthweight of their dead child.

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