''Shadow Baby'' is a 1996 novel by British author

Margaret Forster Margaret Forster (25 May 1938 – 8 February 2016) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic, best known for the 1965 novel ''Georgy Girl'', made into a successful film of the same name, which inspired a hit song by T ...

Plot introduction

Evie was born in 1887 in Carlisle and brought up in a children's home by reluctant relatives, with her wild hair and unassuming ways, she seems a quiet, undemanding child. But is determined to find her mother. Shona, born 1956 seventy years later, is headstrong and striking. She is born in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

, Norway and grows up in comfort and security in Scotland, the only child of doting parents. But there are, as she discovers, unanswered questions about her past.

Reception

Christina Hardyment writes in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' and praises Margaret Forster as having "an extraordinary talent for handling an illuminating deeply sensitive issues of family life. ''Shadow Baby'' is a superbly constructed cross-cut tale of parallel lives Two girls are adopted as babies. Both search, when they are old enough, for the mothers who abandoned them. They find very different receptions - not just because of social changes but because of the characters and experiences of the "real" mothers they belatedly discover. Forster brilliantly conveys the contrasting times, both in attitudes to women and the options on offer for girls who find themselves pregnant outside wedlock. She also achieves a totally unexpected twist which knits together all the story's elements. The book's only weakness is the girls' absence of interest in their fathers."

References

{{reflist

External links

*unabridged CD by Phyllida Law 1996 British novels Chatto & Windus books Novels set in Cumbria Carlisle, Cumbria Novels by Margaret Forster