Sophia travels to Spain with her mother Rose to visit a specialist doctor at “The Gomez Clinic” who can treat her mother’s systematic and chronic maladies that disable her but come and go. Both mother and daughter live in England, but are ethnically Greek. The daughter had been studying for a PhD in anthropology, but she gave it up to spend her time looking after her mother. The doctor takes a skeptical attitude towards Rose’s problems since they don’t make sense and seem to serve her desire to have her daughter cater to all her needs. He also pushes the daughter to break free from her servitude and assert her independence. She is getting fatter as she works in a coffee house in London and her life seems increasingly pointless. When she gets to Spain, there are multiple occasions where she is asked to state her occupation, and she has very conflicted feelings about what to put.

The story is told by Sophia herself, with a very distinctive voice. She has a dry wit and the book is often darkly amusing. The relationship between mother and daughter is well drawn. Rose is a mother who likes to complain about others and pity herself. She got divorced when her daughter was young, and she has not been with any other men since then. Her problems with her legs seem like a performance that works effectively, and so they don’t respond to any treatments, even after many consultations. Her last doctors had prescribed antidepressants for her legs, and she is taking many other medications too.

Deborah Levy’s Holt Milk has been much praised. It is a striking depiction of the somatization of psychological problems and the enmeshed relationship of mother and daughter. It isn’t sympathetic to the mother, and is clear that the daughter is furthering the problem by catering to her mother’s demands. It is the doctor who is the most charismatic figure in the book, quirky and slightly aggressive, on the verge of being unpleasant to his patient. While the mother criticizes him and accuses him of being a fraud, she nevertheless keeps on seeing him. The themes of ethnicity and geography are also central, highlighting the region of Spain where the clinic is located, the city life of London, the Yorkshire identity of Rose, and we also see Sophia’s father’s life in Greece. These help to show some of the cultural diversity of modern Europe, and the tensions they can produce.  

The performance of the unabridged audiobook by Romola Garai emphasizes the laconic style of writing and adds a layer of mystery, as well as bringing out the humor. The writing is strong enough to make the book rise above being just a tale of unhappy women and psychosomatic illness.

© 2017 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches philosophy in the NYC area.