Mother Loved Funerals

Chiswick author's tale of a diva mother, family secrets and one crazy mixed-up kid

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A diva mother, a string of suspicious deaths, family secrets, sexual ambivalence, and a missing father equal one crazy mixed-up kid.

When eight year old Billy Bartlett is unexpectedly sent home from boarding school after the Munich crisis in 1938, his illusions about his adored mother are shattered. Like a slow poison, his childhood is soured by what he discovers.

In Mother Loved Funerals Billy, now older and wiser, with a glamorous actress wife and two children of his own, tells his rites of passage story of growing up during World War II, of his ruthless mother, his love affairs, ambitions and eventual success as a soap actor.

When he is summoned to his dying mother’s bedside in Folkestone, he is determined to uncover the truth behind her mask of respectability. But nothing in the lives of his loved ones is what he imagines. This is a highly charged, ironic tale of family relationships, betrayal and, finally, a deadly choice.

About the Author

Roland Curram has lived in Chiswick for 25 years. "I'm 77 and for fifty years was an actor, ten years ago I started to write novels," he told ChiswickW4.com. "Mother Loved Funerals is my third, now available in Waterstones."

As an actor, Roland Curram appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and in West End shows including Enter a Free Man, Design for Living, Noises Off (1984-85) and Ross.

His television credits include Nana, Bouquet of Barbed Wire, The Crezz, Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Big Jim and the Figaro Club, Till We Meet Again, Eldorado, and Holby City. Films include Dunkirk, The Silent Playground, Decline and Fall, and Darling.

Roland is the author of two previous novels, Man on the Beach and The Rose Secateurs.

April 12, 2010