THE BRIDGE LADIES

BY BETSY LERNER, PAN MACMILLAN.

As a child, Lerner would hang the coats of the “Bridge Ladies” at the door when it was mother Roz’s turn to host the game. As she greeted the ladies again nearly 50 years later, she realised she knew nothing about the coterie who attended her Bat Mitzvah and wedding. Her relationship with her mother was tarnished by scrutiny – Roz turning up to clean cutlery when her daughter was holding a dinner party. Three weeks chatting to the ladies turned into a rare invitation to join the bridge table, blossoming into this sensitive (yet funny) study of mothers and daughters. “They did not complain about their parents in therapy,” observes Lerner of the women who did not kiss each other hello. Jackie is the most di cult to know. Spry Bea, the only one with a gentleman friend. Bette could have been a movie star. Yet this is all about Roz, who never spoke about the death of daughter Barbara at two years old in 1964. The dignified dance of Roz caving into an unheard of embrace with her author daughter trumps all. “I was far too young to understand I had lost my sister. The far greater loss for me was the love of my life: my mother.” Laugh, cry, learn.