Books in brief: Difficult Mothers | Catherine The Great | Full Body Burden

By MICHAEL KERRIGAN
Published on 28/07/2012 00:00

MICHAEL Kerrigan casts his eye over recent literary releases.

Difficult Mothers

by Terri Apter

(Norton, £16.99)

Rating: ****

So intense is the mother–child relationship that the scope for conflict is endless. No mother can be entirely successful in walking the fine line between selfless love and possessive jealousy, natural pride and proprietorship, protectiveness and controlling interference. Apter deftly anatomises the problem, tackling the issues involved in dealing with angry, controlling, envious, neglectful and narcissistic mothers. Plain-speaking but fair-minded, she approaches the problem very much from the perspective of the tormented child, while remaining mindful of what a “difficult” mother may be going through.

Catherine the Great

by Robert K Massie

(Head of Zeus, £25)

Rating: *****

born into German aristocracy, Sophia Augusta Fredericka of Anhalt-Zerbst was only 14 when she was betrothed to Russia’s Grand Duke Peter. By imperial standards, though, her origins were indeed obscure – and her looks didn’t do all that much to redeem her. A less entitled crown-consort it would be hard to find. She held on to her humility, Robert K Massie suggests, when she seized power six months into Peter’s reign. To general acclaim: he’d been as useless a ruler as he had a husband. An unassuming autocrat, she rejected the title “the Great”. A down-to-earth despot, her notorious affairs ran on regular human affection and desire rather than on some strange demonic lust. Modern-minded, she thought seriously about her responsibility to Russia. (Catherine’s art collection is currently being exhibited at the National Museum of Scotland.)

Full Body Burden

by Kristen Iversen

(Harvill Secker, £14.99)

Rating: ****

The Pyramids? Pah! If you’re looking for a legacy, try Rocky Flat, Colorado – by man’s agency, dangerously radioactive now and for the next 24,000 years. Yet you’d never know it, judging by what looks like the ultimate unspoiled western wilderness. Any more than you’d guess at the progressive eating away of the bodies of the human inhabitants; or the toxic blend of lies and secrets which corrode a community’s morale. The assumption so many American writers make that their country once possessed an “innocence” which has been “lost” is viewed with cynicism in the wider world. It’s hard to resist its power, though, when we’re brought up against the deep disillusion permeating Kristen Iversen’s account of a troubled childhood paradise – part personal memoir; part polemic; wholly memorable.