My Beloved Son: A Novel

Catherine Cookson

Simon & Schuster, 1993 - Fiction - 379 pages

Set in Catherine Cookson's native northern English countryside, My Beloved Son is the wonderful, compelling story of a loving family dominated by one woman's suffocating desires. A novel of obsession and the search for true love, My Beloved Son is vintage Cookson. Ironically, it is Ellen Jebeau's love for her son that threatens the family. She had married a man who did little but dream, and then died, leaving her a legacy of debt and a five-year-old son, Joseph. Impoverished and embittered, Ellen becomes determined that young Joseph shall have everything in life that she has missed. Fortunately for Ellen, her late husband had an older brother who is his complete opposite. Strong and optimistic, a wealthy land-owning baronet and lawyer, Sir Arthur Jebeau comes to her aid, installing both mother and son on the family estate. But Sir Arthur is a widower with two young sons, and Ellen knows he will eventually remarry. She fiercely resolves to let nothing stand in the way of what she views as Joseph's "inheritance"--Setting off a series of tragedies that threaten the very existence of the family. Years later, kind, introspective Joseph Jebeau-now a young man ensconced in an army camp on the eve of World War II-tries to emerge from his mother's shadow and live and love on his own terms. But secrets from the past threaten to destroy his happiness with Maggie, a lively young woman at the army camp, as he strives to escape the traumatic heritage of his mother's ruthless ambition and emerge as an independent man--Page 2 and 3 of cover

About the author

Catherine Cookson, 1906 - 1998 British writer Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, Co. Durham. She was born illegitimate and into poverty with a mother who was, at times, an alcoholic and violent. From the age of thirteen, Catherine suffered from hereditary hemorrhage telangiectasia. She also believed, for many years, that she was abandoned as a baby and that her mother was actually her older sister. Catherine wrote her first short story, "The Wild Irish Girl," at the age of eleven and sent it to the South Shields Gazette, which sent it back in three days. She left school at the age of thirteen to work as a maid for the rich and powerful. It was then that she saw the great class barrier inside their society. From working in a laundry, she saved enough money to open an apartment hotel in Hastings. Schoolmaster, Tom Cookson, was one of her tenants and became her husband in 1940. She suffered several miscarriages and became depressed so she began writing to help her recovery. Catherine has written over ninety novels and, under the pseudonym of Catherine Marchant, she wrote three different series of books, which included the Bill Bailey, the Mary Ann, and the Mallen series. Her first book, "Kate Hannigan" (1950), tells the partly autobiographical story of a working-class girl becoming pregnant by an upper-middle class man. The baby is raised by Kate's parents and the child believes them to be her real parents and that Kate is her sister. Many of her novels are set in 19th century England and tell of poverty in such settings as mines, shipyards and farms. Her characters usually cross the class barrier by means of education. Catherine received the Freedom of the Borough of South Shields and the Royal Society of Literature's award for the Best Regional Novel of the year. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year and she was voted Personality of the North-East. She received an honorary degree from the University of Newcastle and was made Dame in 1933. Just shortly before her ninety-second birthday, on June 11, 1998, Catherine died in her home near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. "Kate Hannigan's Girl" (1999), was published posthumously and continues the story of her first novel.

Bibliographic information

• Title: My Beloved Son: A Novel
• Author: Catherine Cookson
• Edition: reprint, large print
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1993
• Original from: Indiana University
• Digitized: Apr 2, 2010
• ISBN: 0671758659, 9780671758653
• Length: 379 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Family Life / General; Fiction / General; Fiction / Romance / Historical / General