Kate Bingham

Kate Bingham’s Mummy’s Legs is a beautifully written but ultimately frustrating exploration of a turbulent childhood told through the eyes of 10-year-old Sarah Ellis. While the premise and setting—a mix of an elegant South Kensington townhouse and a rural Yorkshire farmhouse—promise an evocative narrative, the execution leaves much to be desired.

Sarah’s life is shaped by her mother, Catherine, a deeply complex and troubled woman whose mercurial moods dominate their household. Born on the day of the Nagasaki bombing, Catherine’s vulnerability and penchant for extramarital affairs create a chaotic world that young Sarah struggles to navigate. Meanwhile, her father, Harry, appears largely ineffectual, leaving Sarah to reverse roles with her mother, becoming a caretaker rather than the cared-for.

The novel’s themes of resilience, familial trauma, and the coping mechanisms of children are undeniably poignant. Bingham, an acclaimed poet, brings an exquisite level of detail to her descriptions, such as this passage of Sarah arriving in York:
“The front door opened and Marion appeared, another block of yellow shining out behind her, stretching past her shadow into the mint and lavender bushes around the drive… Tinges of sunset burned a deep, corally red on the horizon, spreading and fading up into the dark blue sky. The scent of freshly cut nettles, of roses, jasmine, even the warm sticky smell of animals in the next field hung in the air.”

But therein lies the rub. While these poetic flourishes are undeniably beautiful, they feel wholly out of place coming from the perspective of a 10-year-old child. This dissonance undermines the narrative’s authenticity and creates a barrier to fully engaging with Sarah’s story. It’s difficult to reconcile the lyrical, mature observations with the supposed voice of a young girl.

The short chapters kept me reading despite my growing frustration with the plot’s uneven pacing and the sense that the characters, particularly Sarah, were more vessels for themes than fully realized individuals. The blurb promises a blend of devastation and humor, melancholy and upliftment, but for me, the balance tipped too heavily toward the former, with the uplifting moments feeling too sparse and insubstantial to compensate.

While Mummy’s Legs offers moments of poignant insight and lyrical beauty, the disjointed narrative and the jarring mismatch between voice and perspective made it a struggle to enjoy. I kept reading, hoping for a payoff that never quite arrived. For these reasons, I can only award this book two stars.

If you’re drawn to deeply poetic prose and don’t mind a lack of narrative cohesion, this might still be worth exploring. For me, however, it fell short of its potential.