Books: Passage from India with a tale of two mothers

The House of Hidden Mothers, Meera Syal, Doubleday, €20.55

Honoured: Actress and author Meera Syal displays her CBE medal at a Buckingham Palace investiture a few weeks ago

Liadan Hynes

To say that Meera Syal's latest book, House of Hidden Mothers, manages to cover such diverse topics as IVF, surrogacy, arranged marriage, middle age, old age, rape, alcoholism, feminism, retirement, raising teenagers, emigration, corruption, divorce and infidelity, would seem to be to condemn it to the category of a worthy but difficult tome.

And yet this doesn't feel like a heavy read. In fact, Syal manages to cover all of the above, and more, with a light hand, mainly by dint of employing a sprawling cast of vivid, sympathetic characters, her own sharp wit, and by avoiding at all times a preachy or judgemental tone. Syal - also one of Britain's leading actresses - is a 53-year-old mother of a seven-year-old, who also has a daughter in her twenties, so was probably able to closely identify with some of her material.