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LOST AND FOUND: The Story of a Family After Divorce by Ann Lovell

LOST AND FOUND: The Story of a Family After Divorce

By

Pub Date: Aug. 1st, 1986
Publisher: Victor Gollancz--dist. by David & Charles

Yet another book about the difficulties of the one-parent, middle-class family. In this case, they are English and consist of a mother and four children, one autistic. The author takes us year by year through a decade of tribulation, illness, vexing personal problems and gives us a full picture of what it is like--the loneliness, the sacrifice and the joy. Clearly, Britain's welfare state set-up does more for families under stress than the US., but from the writer's point of view, it is still not enough and what there is of it lacks sensitivity. The nagging financial problems even in a family which lives in relative comfort--nice home, good schools, all the necessities--are nerve-wracking, though the husband contributes a decent amount. When he remarries and moves to Canada, all real intimacy with his children vanishes, but in retrospect, the writer regards this as a hidden blessing: his absence forces them to become a real family, involved and concerned with one another. Those who have been parents, divorced or not, will see themselves in much of this book and will angst with the author as she summons up her not-inconsiderable courage to seek a sensible and humane result to the topsy-turvy of family life. In the main, she has succeeded and her story may be of comfort to others.