Becoming Beth
Reviewed By Grasshopper2 July 14, 2022
Author Meredith Appleyard
Distributor: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
ISBN: 9781867230878
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers Australia/HQ Fiction AU
Release Date: July 2022
Website: https://www.harpercollins.com
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There are so many aspects of Becoming Beth from Meredith Appleyard that please. The main character, Beth, is a woman in her fifties. The story is gently told so that even with trauma behind her, Beth can gradually unravel her feelings and confront the past, to look at moving on.
She is surrounded by interesting characters. It is also wonderful to have a story set in familiar locations. The town of Miners Ridge may be fictional, but it is north of Clare, and Adelaide is the nearest large city.
Although Beth was raised on a farm, she has worked for most of her life in Adelaide, holding a position as a personal assistant and was married to a man who also worked for the same company. She is now facing a crippling and humiliating divorce.
When the story begins, we see that Beth has returned home to nurse her mother, who has had a massive stroke. She and her father care for the gravely ill woman, but sadly, her mother has another stroke and dies.
Now unemployed and single, Beth has her future to consider, as well as the needs of her beloved father. While helping her father adjust to his solitary life, she becomes involved in the small town’s maintenance issues.
Her mother was on the Town Hall committee, and to save the historic building from ruin, money must be raised. Feeling obliged to take her mother’s place on this committee, Beth meets up with old school friends, and locals who are mostly warm and friendly.
As she begins to research the history of the building she begins to uncover more about her controlling mother’s life which makes her face so many issues that have been kept hidden for many years.
The descriptions of Beth’s father coming in from the heat in the garden with his tomatoes and cucumbers is very evocative. The writing draws you into the story, and you can easily visualise the luscious produce, peaches from the trees and passionfruit from the vines.
Becoming Beth gently looking at the many aspects of family is such a satisfying story on so many fronts.