In it's original language the title was Anna, Hannah och Johanna. The title in English is a little misleading, as I read Hanna's story and she continued to have one boy after the other, I did find myself wondering when she was going to have time to have girls, especially as she marries a much older man.

In fact Hanna has only daughter, Johanna, the same name as the daughter her husband lost and was still grieving for, from his first marriage. Johanna would also have one daughter Anna, it she who begins to tell this story, she visits her mother in hospital, desperate to get answers to questions she's left it too late to ask.

She had lost her memory four years ago, then only a few months later her words had disappeared. She could see and hear, but could name neither objects nor people, so they lost all meaning.

Anna knows she is being demanding like a child, willing her mother to understand and respond, reprimanded by the care staff for upsetting her, for although she can't respond, she is vulnerable to the joys and anxieties of those around her and powerless to prevent the dreams that carry her each night back to the world of her childhood, that place her daughter is trying to penetrate.

Anna finds an old photograph of her grandmother Hanna and recognises similarities she's not been aware of, she remembers her briefly, and asking her mother:

'Why isn't she a proper Gran? Whose lap you can sit on and who tells stories?
And her mother's voice: 'She's old and tired, Anna. She's had enough of children. And there was never any time for stories in her life?'

The narrative then shifts back to Hanna's childhood, born in 1871, the eldest of a second group of children born, the first four died in the famine of the 1860's.

What the mother learned from the previous deaths was never to get fond of the new child. And to fear dirt and bad air.

The first half of the book is dedicated to Hanna and life and this is where the novel is at its best, immersed in the struggle of Hanna's early years, its tragic turning point and the situation she must accept as a result. Circumstances that will become buried deep, that nevertheless leave their impression on how she is in the world.

The mid-section zooms in on her grand-daughter Anna's adult life, charmed by a man with womanizing tendencies, but of a generation that refuses to accept an unbearable situation, one where women are able to be financially independent and greater decision makers.

Naturally I thought it was love driving me into Donald's arms. In my generation, we were obsessed with a longing for a grand passion. Hanna, you would've understood nothing whatsoever about love of that kind. In your day, love hadn't penetrated from the upper classes to the depths of peasantry.

Finally Johanna's life with her husband Arne, the good fortune that comes into her life, the trials that follow, of a different nature than her mother's, though not so far from her grandmother's though she probably knew nothing of that loss.

The second half of the book was less memorable for me, possibly because Hanna's story created such a strong sense of place and life in that era was full of dramatic events which underpinned the development of the characters. When the family moves to Goteborg, to the city and its ways, when the automobile arrives and travels shortens distances, life tended to become more uniform, less distinct.

Marianne Fredriksson in the opening pages of the novel reflects on something she learned at school, when Bible studies were still part of the curriculum, that the sins of the fathers are inflicted on children into the third and fourth generations. She felt that was terribly unjust, primitive and ridiculous, growing up, the first generation to be raised to be 'independent', those who were to take destiny into their own hands.

Then as knowledge developed and understanding of the importance of our social and psychological inheritance grew, those words began to acquire new meaning, and though there were none that spoke about the actions of mothers, here she found it to have more meaning.

We inherit patterns, behaviour and ways of reacting to a much greater extent than we like to admit. It has not been easy to adapt to; so much has been 'forgotten', disappearing into the subconscious when grandparents left farms and countryside where the family had lived for generations.

She goes on to say that ancient patterns are passed on from mothers to daughters, who have daughters... and that perhaps here too we might find some

explanation for why women have found it so difficult to stick up for themselves and make use of the rights an equal society has to offer.