The Millstone, by Margaret Drabble

pro-natal feminism and influencing Sally Rooney

This is a Bildungsroman of sorts, about the way becoming a mother changes a woman, makes her more assertive. The woman in question, Rosamund, is a hugely attractive character, but also unforgivably duplicitous. Drabble is expert at creating the conspiratorial sympathy necessary to tread the line between radical and conventional. The Millstone is often praised as feminist, but its pro-natalism, and discussion of abortion, would surely make it appealing to the revisionary feminists such as Louise Perry today.

Drabble said recently,

It is easier to cite women who have written openly about sex, sexual orientation, menstruation and abortion than those who have written positively about childbirth… I continue to be surprised by the fact that “the Nursing Madonna” was considered a wholly suitable subject for art, while breastfeeding is still hardly ever mentioned in literature. We continue to inhabit a world of paradoxical values, one in which books and babies are not yet entirely compatible.