The Millstone Margaret Drabble Penguin, 2016 (first published 1965), PB, 176pp, £8.99, 978-0241979174
The Millstone, Margaret Drabble’s mid-1960s tale of unmarried motherhood, isn’t quite the kitchen-sink drama I was expecting. Its narrator’s exposure to NHS medicine depicts an overburdened service (no change there) in which a person’s class and connections affect the care they receive. The narrator, Rosie, is a postgraduate student from a well-off socialist family, living in a large flat near Marylebone; her parents are away in Africa. Her friends are writers and the man she sleeps with — just once, and decides not to tell — is a BBC announcer.
Rosie’s first reaction to her pregnancy is to induce miscarriage with a bottle of gin and a hot bath, but her friends turn up and share the bottle. Another friend …