A Home for Mrs M

A warm, funny and sharply observed memoir of an Indian woman making a home in Britain, and of migration, marriage, motherhood and belonging across three decades. ‘And could this place ever really become home?’ And so begins Jaishree Misra’s account of more than three decades spent making a life in Britain. Arriving in the early 1990s with mango pickle in her suitcase, an abiding love of English books and a daughter with special needs, she has plenty to figure out: British reserve and British rain, baffling accents and even more baffling drinking habits, immigration officers, racism, the NHS, the monarchy and what, exactly, one is supposed to mean when one says ‘home’. Along the way, there is Mr M, reassuringly phlegmatic as ever; RR, building a life of her own; and an assortment of friends, neighbours, teachers, carers and strangers who complicate her ideas about both Britain and India. Warm, funny and characteristically irreverent, A Home for Mrs M is a sharply observed memoir of migration, marriage, motherhood and belonging, and a quest to discover if home lies beyond bricks and mortar, land and shifting sands.