Like Mother – Cassandra Austin

Is it possible to be too tired to remember where you put your infant daughter down to sleep? If the stories I hear of new parenthood are true, abso-freakin’-lootly.

That’s the disturbing premise of Like Mother, the new domestic noir from Cassandra Austin. Set in small-town Australia in 1969, over the course of a single day in the life of sleep-deprived Louise, it interrogates the role of women in the world and in the home, and how far the apple really falls from the tree.

Louise’s husband is away “working”… or is he?

Her daughter is in the nursery “sleeping”… or is she?

Her mother is constantly “interfering”… or is she?

This book made me so impatient, I just wanted to shake it and scream “what is happening?!”, right up until the final chapter.

I also loved all the nods that Austin made to the American cultural imperialism that intensified with the space race of that era.

Much gratitude to Penguin Random House Australia who sent through this copy for review.