“Rudderless, I drifted through the days. There was no other way to describe it. Reflecting on the past was something I’d always meticulously avoided, and I couldn’t conjure any energy to contemplate the future.”

Becoming Beth is the seventh novel by Australian author, Meredith Appleyard. In the late autumn of 2020, Beth Harkness has been back in her rural South Australian hometown of Miners Ridge for some months. Her return was prompted by the split with her husband of fifteen years, but it put her in place to help out when her mother had a stroke.

Some six weeks after Marian Harkness has died, Beth is looking out for her beloved but very independent dad, Alan, and filling a vacant spot on the town hall committee, just to keep herself busy and useful. When her husband left her for a younger man, she quit her job and has not seriously looked for anything else. Instead she’s helping out a widow on the committee with transport and chores. Beth finds Shirley Schubert a lot easier to talk to than her mother ever was.

Her relationship with Marian was always fraught, and Beth has been avoiding sorting out her mother’s things. When she eventually begins, she learns that while her mother was a powerhouse for attracting funding and getting things done, she wasn’t universally popular in town. Efficient, but not empathetic, as Beth well knew from her youth.

When the town hall committee needs Marian’s documents for a new roof campaign, a search of her laptop yields a timebomb: an unwelcome reminder of something she’d rather avoid. “I could bury an unpleasant experience so deep as to almost forget it’d ever happened. Unsurpassed self-deception: now that was one of my strengths.”

At the same time, Committee meetings mean encounters with someone from her past: Ashton Tiller, now a local high school teacher, is the twin brother of the boy on whom Beth had a secret crush. Ash seems to be the polar opposite of Richard, considerate and kind, and is also dealing with elderly parents and their problems. He and Beth can certainly relate, but Ash has his own emotional baggage, and a nuisance female colleague to diplomatically deter.

This is a novel that will strike a chord with readers of a certain vintage: those with ageing parents succumbing to dementia and/or physical deterioration, those caring for grandchildren, and those facing their own issues of work-life balance, unexpected redundancy and seeking employment at a mature age. Not to mention frustration with their own ageing bodies.

Appleyard’s protagonist might initially not endear herself to the reader: a bit “poor me” and sometimes a little uncharitable and judgemental, for which she soon enough admonishes herself when she learns the true situations of the objects of her criticism. But it is satisfying to see her gradually woven into the fabric of the Miners Ridge community.

We could all wish for a wise and kind father like Beth’s, though: “Beth, you have not and never could disappoint me. Life is difficult and full of challenges. We end up doing some things for all the wrong reasons. We make mistakes. The trick is to learn from them and move on. Forgive others, and forgive yourself.”

Appleyard renders her setting and era with consummate ease. Miners Ridge and its residents could be any small Australian rural town. She gives them plenty of wise words and insightful observations. And she seamlessly and realistically incorporates the COVID spectre into her tale, without allowing it to cast a pall.

The story explores the long-term damage that can be done by a parent who thrusts their own unrealised ambition and expectations onto their child, and saddles them with their disappointment at perceived failure. It also emphasises how unhealthy repressed emotions can be. A moving and thought-provoking read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harlequin Australia.