The School For Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan

‘I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good.’
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‘(An) intense, unputdownable debut that will doubtless spark conversation about what makes a good or bad mother.’ Oprah Daily
 
Frida Liu is a struggling mother. She remembers taking Harriet from her cot and changing her nappy.
She remembers giving her a morning bottle. They'd been up since four am.
 
Frida just had to finish the article in front of her. But she'd left a file on her desk at work. What would happen if she retrieved it and came back in an hour? She was so sure it would be okay. Now, the state has decided that Frida is not fit to care for her daughter. That she must be re-trained. Soon, mothers everywhere will be re-educated. Will their mistakes cost them everything?
 
Acquired at a major auction this is a searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by   both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness    of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic. For fans of Margaret Atwood and Kiley Reid’s Such A Fun Age.
 
Jessamine Chan holds an MFA from Columbia University, where she was awarded a teaching fellowship. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House and Epoch. Her work has also received support from Bread Loaf, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Jentel, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Anderson Center, VCCA, and Ragdale. Prior to moving to Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and daughter, she worked as a nonfiction reviews editor at Publishers Weekly.
 
Hollywood star Jessica Chastain has optioned The School for Good Mothers through her production company Freckle Films and will be adapting it for the small screen alongside Taiwanese-born American director and writer Jude Weng (Blackish, The Good Place and Young Sheldon)