The Other Mother

Silje Marie is married to Helene. Together, they have two sons named Olav and Henry. When Helene and the children go on vacation, Silje Marie remains in the family’s house, a home that is temporarily being packed up and prepared for renovation. Here, it’s as if she is not only left alone with the responsibility for the house and the belongings but also with the uncertainty about the choices she and Helene have made and the direction their lives will take. She is burdened by the forbidden thought that she feels a different attachment to her two children, having given birth to one but not the other. Most of all, she grapples with the feeling that she is living a double life, something she has lied about and kept hidden from Helene: the existence of another mother, with whom she interacts, and a son who resembles Henry.
The Other Mother is an acute and courageous account of a mother’s crisis, a novel that intelligently and provocatively delves into societal questions concerning parenthood, biology, and queer lives.