Book Review: The Millstone by Margaret Drabble

ISSN 2516-5852 (Online)

Complete list of book reviews on the AIMS website

AIMS Journal, 2020, Vol 32, No 4

To read or download this Journal in a magazine format on ISSUU, please click here

The Millstone

By Margaret Drabble

Published by Penguin 2016

ISBN 9780141041728

176 pages

Publisher’s recommended price £8.99

Find this book on Amazon

The Millstone book cover

Various editions of this 1965 classic are available

Reviewed for AIMS by Shane Ridley

I was given this book during lockdown and although it is unusual for AIMS to review fiction books I realised that it was an interesting book to review given this is AIMS’ 60th Anniversary year. It was first published in 1965 so not quite as old as us!

It tells the story of a young woman in the 60s. Rosamund is a well-educated, well brought-up, daughter of middle-class socialists living in London in her parent’s flat whilst they are out of the country. She has a few issues with the new freedom of sexual encounters, but eventually finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand. She tries the ‘usual ways’ of losing the baby, but soon realises that she really wants to be a single mother.

There follows the most delightful story of Rosamund’s experience of pregnancy and birth. The medical students who probe her fundus, listening to the horror stories about birth and getting to hold a baby for the first time and realising they are quite heavy, warm and damp. Then waiting for labour to progress, listening to the chatter of five nurses in the corridor and then … I won’t spoil the story, but it’s one we still hear today! She enjoyed her stay in hospital ‘fortified by the superior beauty and intelligence’ of her child.

She takes her baby, Octavia, home and is doing well. But when the baby is a few months old Octavia needs a life-saving heart operation. After the operation, the matron says she can’t see her for a fortnight and our heroine reacts ...

This novel is set in a decade long gone, but I would recommend the book as it will remind us of how far we have come in terms of maternity services and how far we have not. It is an incredible feminist novel too, one which I think should be on young people’s reading lists, as it is as good and relevant as when it was first published.

I nearly didn’t read it because of the title as I don’t think of a baby as a ‘millstone’. However I’m very pleased I did, as it reminded me of the joy of pregnancy, birth and motherhood. There are, apparently, reasons for the title that I will pass to English graduates to explain!


The AIMS Journal spearheads discussions about change and development in the maternity services..

AIMS Journal articles on the website go back to 1960, offering an important historical record of maternity issues over the past 60 years. Please check the date of the article because the situation that it discusses may have changed since it was published. We are also very aware that the language used in many articles may not be the language that AIMS would use today.

To contact the editors, please email: journal@aims.org.uk

We make the AIMS Journal freely available so that as many people as possible can benefit from the articles. If you found this article interesting please consider supporting us by becoming an AIMS member or making a donation. We are a small charity that accepts no commercial sponsorship, in order to preserve our reputation for providing impartial, evidence-based information.

JOIN AIMS

MAKE A DONATION

Buy AIMS a Coffee with Ko-Fi

AIMS supports all maternity service users to navigate the system as it exists, and campaigns for a system which truly meets the needs of all.

Latest Content

Journal

« »

Pregnancy and hearing: Did you know…

AIMS Journal, 2024, Vol 36, No 4 Did you know that one in three pregnant women develop tinnitus compared with one in ten who are not pregnant? Tinnitus is the sensation o…

Read more

Editorial: Hello and welcome. How a…

AIMS Journal, 2024, Vol 36, No 4 By Alex Smith Welcome to the December 2024 edition of the AIMS journal. The theme for this quarter considers the experience of care for d…

Read more

Welcome to the Deaf Community – a l…

AIMS Journal, 2024, Vol 36, No 4 By a hearing mother of a deaf baby Sat in the hospital ward, I snapped a cute picture on my phone of my tiny little newborn wearing a hea…

Read more

Events

« »

AIMS Workshop: The Foundation Stone…

Join us for an interactive online AIMS workshop: " The Foundation Stones for Supporting the Physiological Process in Pregnancy and Birth ". Tickets available here: https:…

Read more

MuM-PreDiCT Dissemination event

MuM-PreDiCT is a UK-wide research programme funded by the Medical Research Council. The project focuses on understanding how multiple long-term conditions affect women, b…

Read more

AIMS Workshop: Focusing on Inductio…

Join us for an interactive online AIMS workshop, " Focusing on Induction of Labour ". Tickets available here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/aims/1472572 Nadia Higso…

Read more

Latest Campaigns

« »

AIMS Letter to Wes Streeting

AIMS has written to Wes Streeting MP, welcoming him to the role of Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We acknowledge his awareness that maternity services are…

Read more

Involving Service User Voices in Ma…

This is an edited version of an invited talk given by Jo Dagustun, AIMS Campaigns Team, to the International Labour and Birth Research Conference UK, 24 - 26 April 2023.…

Read more

Birth Trauma Inquiry Open Letter in…

We write this letter in response to the recently published APPG Report on Birth Trauma which can be found here The report was extremely moving and we honour the brave con…

Read more