Customer Reviews

The Sugar Mother

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A mother/daughter (21?) insinuate themselves into the household of a 54 year old professor whose wife is away for a year for professional reasons. The plot centers on the professor's growing love for the daughter, culminating in a baby (which may not be his). Jolly deliberately makes the daughter unattractive and passive - for the book is really about a man in a hollow marriage, although he doesn't realize it, with close friends who are well meaning, but not nurturing. The positive characters are the slightly sinister mother, with a genius for creating a warm household, and a spinster friend who is honorable, capable, and a paragon of true friendship. Some of Jolley's prose reads as if it were translated from German, and the plot and the professor are in some ways silly, but at the same time the professor is a very well realized character, and the book is an OK read.

Originally published in 1988 and recognized as a masterpiece, The Sugar Mother is Australian author Elizabeth Jolley's novel of infatuation and its consequences, now brought back into print in America by Persea Books. Middle-aged English professor Edwin Page has chosen to stay at home rather than accompany his childless, obstetrician wife Cecilia on her year-long fellowship abroad. Intending to spend a quiet year at home, he becomes the unexpected benefactor of Mrs. Botts and her alluring twenty-odd daughter Leila when they lock themselves out of their house. They stay with Edwin and refuse to leave; when Mrs. Botts' suggests that Leila become a "sugar mother" (meaning "surrogate mother"), Edwin's increasingly lustful desire for her has predictably procreative consequences. As the day of Cecilia's impending return draws closer, the tension mounts thickly in this at times stream-of-consciousness style story of human foibles. Also highly recommended is Jolley's novel of redemption through an evolving screenplay performance, "Foxybaby".

Obstetrician Dr. Cecilia Page takes leave from her medical practice for a year in Europe on a fellowship grant. Her fifty-four years old husband Edwin, a professor, remains behind in Australia as he has commitments.

A milquetoast, Edwin meets the new neighbors, twenty-something Leila Botts and her outrageous mother. He is attracted to the younger Bott, but before he knows what happened, mother and daughter are locked out of their home. He invites them to move in with him. Mrs. Botts the elder suggests Leila serve as Edwin's "sugar" mother, which, in between panting and forgetting he has a spouse soon to come home (that is if Cecilia does not extend again), but he acquiesces to the fantasy.

This is a reprint of a jocular 1988 character study of a middle age man going through a personal crisis while his wife is overseas. Edwin is a fascinating lead protagonist who will remind readers of the Tom Ewell character in the Seven Year Itch as the audience wonders what is running wild in his imagination and what is real as Leila is his Marilyn Monroe. Fans will appreciate this deep look at the serious significance of the basic human need for relationships, but done in the author's Jolly satirical manner.

Harriet Klausner