The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels

First edition
Author Doris Lessing
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Publisher Flamingo
Publication date
 2003
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 311
ISBN 978-0-00-715279-7
OCLC 55588850
823/.914 22
LC Class PR6023.E833 G69 2003b

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels is collection of four short stories published in 2003 by 2007 Nobel laureate Doris Lessing. The 2013 Australian-French film Adore (alternatively known as Adoration; previously known as Two Mothers and Perfect Mothers) is based on the story The Grandmothers.

Plot summaries

The Grandmothers

Rozeanne and Liliane, two British schoolgirls, end up as neighbours after they get married. The marriages crumble but their friendship keeps on. Both are infatuated with one another's son, to the boys' wives dismay.

Victoria and the Staveneys

In London, Victoria, a Black girl, stays over in a white liberal household one night. Over the years, her aunt gives in to cancer, and she looks back on her night at the Staveney's with longing. Much later, she has a little girl, Mary, with one of the Staveneys's sons, Thomas. Mary ends up relinquishing her mother's house for the whites's upbringing.

The Reason for It

In an extant paper, a member of The Twelve, an oligarchy, tells of the history of his civilisation. Subsequent to Destra's death, her son DeRod takes up her role after The Twelve pick him. The civilisation is slowly destroyed; after much reflection, the narrator realises DeRod cannot be blamed for it: he was an idiot and did not know what he was doing.

A Love Child

During the Second World War, James, a British young man, is dispatched to South Africa and India. In SA, he has an affair with a British girl who lives there, Daphne. She becomes pregnant and he never forgets her. Both of them get married, and when the child is twenty he flies to SA and attempts to meet him. He only receives a picture; his life goes on but his marriage seems a sham.

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