The title is a quotation from the Gospel (Matthew 18:6), symbolizing a heavy burden. The protagonist of this novel, a brilliant young woman working on her doctoral thesis on the Elizabethan sonnet in swinging London in the 1960s, becomes pregnant by the man with whom she has sexual relations for the first and only time. After initial doubts, she decides to continue with the pregnancy and give birth without a partner, without marrying, and without telling the child’s father.
Neither her liberal friends, who drink gin and go to see “the latest Fellini film,” nor her conservative relatives, who are scandalised, can understand why she makes this decision. It is a complex reflection on what both independence and the need for others mean.
Drabble (1939), who has received numerous honours, was awarded the James Llewelyn Prize for this novel.