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What’s it like to grow up on the losing side of history?
Motherland was published by John Murray in 2015, and is available from Bookshop.org, Hive and Waterstones in the UK, and Kennys in the EU.
It was published by Ullstein as Paradise Ost in German in 2016.
It’s 1978, Jess is thirteen and she already has a reputation – as the daughter of the only communist in town. But then, it’s in the blood. The Mitchells have been in the Party since the Party began. Jess and her mother Eleanor struggle to sell socialism to Tamworth – a sleepy Midlands town that just doesn’t want to know.
So when Eleanor is invited to spend a summer teaching in East Germany, she and Jess leap at the chance to see what the future looks like. On the other side of the Iron Curtain they turn from villains into heroes. And when Eleanor meets widower Peter and his daughter, Martina, a new, more peaceful life seems possible.
But the Cold War has no time for love and soon the trouble starts. Peter is dispatched for two years of solidarity work in Laos. Friends become enemies, and Jess discovers how easy it is to switch sides – how sides can be switched for you, sometimes without you even knowing.
Motherland is a tender mother-daughter story and a tragi-comic portrait of a childhood overcome with belief. It’s about loss of faith and loss of innocence, and what it’s like to grow up on the losing side of history.
Jo and Isobel McMillan, Pädagogische Hochschule „Karl Liebknecht“, Potsdam 1978
Behind the scenes of Motherland
Images from the story behind the story.
Selling the Morning Star
My mum was wearing a Sixty Years of Socialism T-shirt, the red turned pink, the hammer and sickle flaking because of Co-op own-brand powder.
In loco parentis
Mr Howard liked to talk, and sometimes I didn’t mind listening – when I was home and I’d done my homework, and my mum was still out, and it was a warm evening, and we both happened to be out the back.
An invitation
‘How many people from Tamworth, Jess, will ever get to see the GDR?’
Actually Existing Socialism
The sky was a deep blue. Several suns sat in the windows of King Frederick’s palace. Stone figures queued around the rooftop. Golden angels balanced on one foot.
A Day Trip into the Cold War
I hadn’t expected the Berlin Wall to be clean and white and smooth. It looked more like the edge of the swimming baths than the edge of the Cold War.
The Young Communist League
‘I want you to apply Stalin to Tamworth.’
Election night
I’d been certified Unfit for England.
Treptow War Memorial
‘If there is one thing I have learned, it is your friends can become your enemies and your enemies your friends. Knowing this has helped me to survive.’
Plänterwald Kulturpark
‘But after all that death, I thought perhaps some lightness. I thought we could all go to the funfair.’
New Year
I was defecting on the Prinz Hamlet, sailing over to the other side on the last crossing of the seventies.
At the GDR Embassy
Behind his head, a photo of Erich Honecker – the official one I knew from all over the place with the blue background and sun-lamped skin.
At the lake
Martina said, ‘Would nothing put you off the GDR?’ Her gaze stropped to the water. I shrugged. ‘If something happened to you, maybe.’
Peter in Tamworth
I’d seen his solidarity book, the monthly dues like Co-op stamps only prettier, as if one day he’d be able to collect divi on World Revolution.
Troubles mount
My bedroom curtains were closed, but a glow from the street fell under them, spilling onto my GDR shrine. It lit the plug-in, revolving TV Tower, which I unplugged at night because of the hum.
Building the Wall
On Strausberger Platz, the fountain was back on… Peter stood in abandoned flags and the first dark spots of summer rain, his feet wreathed in crushed carnations.
Our People
Our People were just a rumour. They were so secret, no one knew who they were. They didn’t even know who they were. And now I was going to meet them.
Stefan
‘We need all our warriors, Jess. Do not be fooled. Do not be a fool.’
The wait
‘I think you’ll find the Tamworth branch is already dead. I’m merely unplugging the life-support machine.’
Visiting Eleanor
I found the glade where Martina had told me she didn’t tell me the bad news, where she’d let Schwielowsee sand run between her fingers, where she’d vanished into the water, when it was still water. Now it was bright with ice.
© Jo McMillan 2025