The Mother Act
Heidi Reimer
Penguin Random House 2024
ISBN: 97805934753726
Author Heidi Reimer’s “The Mother Act” is a love story that revolves around two main characters: Sadie Jones, the mother, a member of the New York Feminist Guerrilla Theatre Collective who advocates against motherhood and marriage, and her daughter, Jude. Reimer’s novel is a complex play with various acts that bounce back and forth in time.
At age 19, Sadie had ran away from home, rejecting her parents’ religious values that included for her to marry and have children. In New York, as a Collective member, she demonstrated through performances how motherhood and marriage was a trap in which women were denied careers and independence.
But when she meets Damian Linnen, a Shakespearean actor from United Kingdom on tour in New York, she forsakes her Collective values and marries him. Then, a few years later, when Damian wants a child she again caves, because of her love for him, and delivers a daughter who is named Jude.
In the first Act, Jude has become a member of Damian’s new Shakespearean troupe where she has gained recognition. It’s then that Sadie attends one of Jude’s performances. At that point, it’s been years since Sadie abandoned Jude and Damian. Jude has become angry and resentful.
Meanwhile, Sadie has become a successful actress, performing in a play where she weaves women’s stories that tell “tales of freedom lost, identities shattered, careers sabotaged through obedience to the societal mandate that women should be mothers.” As the play, or novel, evolves, the reader learns Sadie is also financially secure and is even funding Damien’s ventures.
Jude remains confused as to why her mother who claims she loves her daughter, has abandoned her, yet as fate would have it, Jude’s life is beginning to run parallel to her mother. Will Jude choose a career over marriage and a child? And what prompted her mother to leave? Does she forgive her mother?
What is significant about this novel is it coincides with the current political discussion regarding women’s role as mothers and wives. At its heart, the book is about love: Sadie going against her beliefs because of her love for Damian, and her daughter’s desperate need for her mother’s love and affection. Still, the plot lacks believability, since both easily achieve fame and recognition, as they simultaneously perform stories about motherhood.
