The Garment

Motherhood is every woman's right and the natural outcome of a happy marriage. What then is the answer when a normal and beautiful young woman is forced to recognise, after two years as the wife of a country parson in the north of England, that her own marriage is a sham and will never bring her the fulfillment she desperately needs? Grace Rouse is faced by this situation and like many other women before her, she seeks to escape a mounting sense of frustration and despair by turning from the husband she has tried in vain to love to the comfort and release offered by another man. The final outcome, however does not conform to pattern, and Grace is forced to wage a war between a man who can give her children and a man who passionately desires children but can only give them his name. The Garment is an early work by Catherine Cookson, who has never written a novel with a more challenging theme. It is absorbing and very moving and written with compassion and a sense of real concern for the issues it involves. Grace Rouse, a normal and beautiful young woman, is forced to recognise that her marriage is a sham after two years as the wife of a country parson. She turns from the husband she has tried in vain to love to the comfort and release offered by another man. Grace Rouse tried in vain to love her husband but found she could not. Looking for love elsewhere, she found herself torn between a man who could give her children and a man who passionately desired children but could only give them his name.