Will I love The Millstone?

This 1965 novel by English author Margaret Drabble follows protagonist and PhD student Rosamund as she becomes a single mother.

Educated, upper-middle-class Rosamund narrates with a quintessentially British and—for me—highly enjoyable blend of primness and humor. Fascinatingly and somewhat frustratingly, Rosamund keeps her pregnancy a secret from her daughter Octavia’s father, even after Octavia is born. She’s like a strange English Virgin Mary who studies Elizabethan sonnets and really doesn’t want to “put anyone out”.

Her story also offers an interesting glimpse into class issues in 1960s London and the way that experiences of pregnancy and motherhood can both transcend… show more.

I first read The Millstone as a teenager and was surprised by it, as I imagined the baby – illegitimate, unplanned – was the millstone of the title. But the book is in fact a pean to motherhood, how it sharpens and enriches life, how love, unimagined, can burst up and bring joy. I re-read this book as part of my recent research – and found it wittier, cleverer and more poignant than I’d remembered. A true feminist classic of its time, and ours.