Stepmother - by Helen Mort (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

When a new relationship casts her in the unforeseen role of stepmother, prizewinning poet Helen Mort embarks on a personal quest to understand this most maligned of female archetypes.

'She already has a mum. To speak would have seemed like a disavowal, a distancing. To stay silent meant taking something which was not yours.

So of course you said nothing. You took it.'

With compelling candour and emotional insight, these poems are unforgettable dispatches from the shifting terrain that is the modern family. Alongside the poetâ (TM) s own journey, Stepmother revisits with a fresh and questioning eye stepmothers in fairytale, film, and our cultureâ (TM) s darkest corners of fantasy.

Mortâ (TM) s writing interweaves ravishing fragments of lyric essay with gothic flights into verse that draw us deep into the woods of upon-a-time, and back, powerfully, into the now. Groundbreaking and transformative, tender and uncompromising, Stepmother has much to teach us about female power and its perennial threat; about our openness to change, and the surprising shapes love can take.

Review Quotes

'Brave, graceful and absolutely vital -- Mort shoulders away the old trope of the stepmother and replaces her with a host of humane women who undertake the complicated, skillful, often powerless work of loving children. All the difficulties, privileges and rewards of remade families are in this collection; so is extraordinary sorority amid the minefields'--Sarah Hall, author of HELM

'We're familiar with art as an 'act of love' but sometimes it's also an act of life, of living itself; a book that must be written in order to live. In this utterly remarkable collection, Helen Mort builds a home, and a skin: a shape-shifting, porous house in which the poet, and everyone she loves, might live in the fullest sense of the word'--Caroline Bird, author of THE AIR YEAR

'After becoming a stepmother herself, Helen Mort begins to question the narrative about their supposed 'wickedness'. Whether retelling fairytales or analysing contemporary porn, I was enchanted by her blend of generous lyric and furious cultural critique. A spell for seeing differently'--Clare Pollard, author of THE MODERN FAIRIES

Mort demonstrates commitment to sharing an excruciating truth... Where neat answers falter, messy love persists--Observer

'A twisting, turning tale of what and who a stepmother is and can be. Spell-binding, aching, eerie and enchanting'--Rachel Long, author of Sparrow on the Rooftop

Mort's poems are a vivid compendium of stories, but they also offer ways of escaping the trap of myth--Guardian

Stepmother's mixture of verse, research and commentary is passionately expressed and moving--Financial Times

About the Author

Helen Mort has published three collections of poetry: Division Street (2013), winner of the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, No Map Could Show Them (2016) and The Illustrated Woman (2022). Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Forward, T. S. Eliot and Costa Prizes. She has written a novel, Black Car Burning (2019) and a short story collection, Exire (2019). Her creative non-fiction includes A Line Above The Sky (2022), winner of the Boardman Tasker Award, and Ethel (2024). She is a Professor in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in Sheffield.