In these two slim novels, first published in 1988 and 1990 respectively, Jenny Diski takes the notion of the family, shatters it, and then examines the pieces with a kind of despairing joy. Like Mother is the story of Frances, a dancer who has spent most of her life trying to detach herself from a world she finds distasteful; it is narrated by her daughter Nonny (short for Nonentity), a baby with no brain, who becomes involved in hilarious dialogue with the entity she has, in turn, dreamed up by way of audience; Then Again follows the quest of Katya, a disturbed teenager, for truth and decency or - as she would put it - the grace of God, and the quest of her ceramic-designer mother Esther for peace of mind. Both books put the spotlight firmly on mother-daughter relationships, and here's a clue: there are no girlie shopping trips.
