The Kitchen Years
£16.99
Summer, 1982. Thirteen-year-old Finlay James spends his days with friends, music and the familiar routines of life on a Swindon council estate. Home feels safe, until his mother begins to change.
From Fin's perspective, her moods become unpredictable, their once-steady relationship strained by arguments he cannot understand. Kathleen's menopause goes unnamed, while grief, exhaustion and the quiet expectations of family, class and the Catholic Church leave little room for difficult conversations.
As Fin navigates adolescence, he finds himself coming of age alongside his mother in ways neither of them recognises. His puberty unfolds in parallel with her menopause, each experiencing emotional upheaval, confusion and change without the words to make sense of it.
Looking back as an adult, Fin begins to understand what the boy could not: his mother was never failing. She was surviving.
Warm, nostalgic and deeply compassionate, The Kitchen Years is a moving memoir about family love, misunderstanding, and the experiences that only make sense with time.
M. W. J Young is a British writer born and raised in Swindon. Growing up on the Penhill council estate during the 1970s and 1980s, he developed a deep appreciation for storytelling, music and the humour found in everyday family life.
During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, he rediscovered a collection of teenage notebooks and personal writings that had remained hidden for decades. Those forgotten memories became the foundation for The Kitchen Years, a memoir that revisits adolescence with the perspective and compassion that only time can bring.
Drawing on his own experiences of growing up in a working-class Irish family, Young explores family relationships, grief, menopause and the emotional complexities of coming of age with honesty, warmth and humour. The Kitchen Years is his debut book.