The Carer by Deborah Moggach

Summary:

James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy’s virtues, their shopping trips, and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss. Is this really their father, the distant figure who never once turned up for a sports day, now happily chortling over cuckoo clocks and television soaps?

Then something happens that throws everything into new relief, and Phoebe and Robert discover that life most definitely does not stop for the elderly. It just moves onto a very different plane – changing all the stories they thought they knew so well.

My Review:

This was one book I knew in advance of the London Book Fair earlier this year and was so delighted when a copy of the proof arrived but missed out on an interview with Deborah Moggach at the London Book Fair due to work commitments. This would have been one of the highlights of the year. Just a few days after publication The Carer by Deborah Moggach is selling fast.

The story follows a number of characters in James who is now elderly and is having to look after himself after his wife passed away and also son and daughter Robert and Phoebe both independent people and living lives as their parents hoped they would but they both know their father needs some help as they cannot be their all the time.

Along comes Mandy who is employed to look after their dad on a full-time basis. Mandy at first is really liked by both Robert and Phoebe and even their father but them something does not seem right and they see their father becoming a little more different than the father they thought they knew. Mandy seems to have worked some magic. Now the man who always seemed a little far off and not one for jokes seems to have found a new lease of life. He is laughing and with Mandy they go off exploring. What has changed and how and why? I am not giving away any spoilers here. This I want you to experience for yourself.

Now it is both Robert and Phoebe who are looking at themselves and asking many questions not only about their father and each other but now they are asking who really is Mandy? What has she done to the distant father they always knew. There is some doubt between them both to Mandy. The tended to go in a way I was not really expecting. Which I really liked. At the very beginning of the book is a ‘Meet the Characters’ which I actually thought was a great idea so you go to know the leading players before you start the novel.

I love this tender and funny novel and the wit that only Deborah Moggach can bring to her novels. If you are a fan, then you are going to fall in love with The Carer. Sensitive and well-structured and one book I am delighted to Highly Recommend.

272 Pages.

Thank you to Georgina Moore for the review copy of The Carer by Deborah Moggach

The Carer by Deborah Moggach was published by Tinder Press and was published on 9^th July 2019 and is available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.