A Woman on the Edge of Time: a son’s search for his mother - Couverture souple

'Mesmerising ... Meticulous, even-handed and quietly revelatory, [A Woman on the Edge of Time] may be read both as a kind of detective story, the reader's stomach fluttering wildly each time he tracks down another witness, and as a work of social history, a sly skewering of the limitations, whether spoken or unspoken, which were then placed on women.' --Rachel Cooke, The Obsever

'Gavron is too subtle and intelligent to make the mistake of believing that suicide is ever about only one thing. And here, in beautiful, mesmeric prose, he delves deep into the shadow side of his mother's life ... The result is a memoir that is surely going to be regarded as a classic of the genre.' --The Independent

'Jeremy Gavron's quest [in writing A Woman on the Edge of Time] is a double quest: to find out what his mother was like in life and to find out why she killed herself ... The tenacity with which he pursues this goal is extraordinary ... The taboo of silence that shrouded Jeremy's childhood is broken. Those complicit with it aren't arraigned; the tone is patient and compassionate. But Hannah [Gavron] steps out of the shadow, 50 years on, and the great unsaids are finally spoken.' --Blake Morrison, The Guardian

Chosen as an Observer 'Book of the Year' by Ali Smith, Rachel Cooke and Jackie Kay

In 1965, Hannah Gavron a bright, sophisticated young writer and wife to a rising entrepreneur gassed herself in Primrose Hill, north London. She left behind a suicide note, two small children, and an about-to-be-published manuscript: The Captive Wife.

Jeremy Gavron was the youngest of Hannah s children, just four years old when she killed herself. In this searching examination of the events that led to her suicide, he pieces together from letters, diaries and the memories of old friends a picture of a brilliant but complex young woman grappling to find an outlet for her intelligence and sexuality as she carved out her place in a man's world.