Deborah Levy’s Booker Prize shortlisted book “Hot Milk” was adapted for the screen in 2025. The book was published in 2016, 10 years ago, and still holds the world’s attention by capturing the nuanced essence of parental relationships.
I took a break from my Booker Prize Shortlist 2025 binge with this unexpected pick from the library and plunged right into the story. I have no idea what urged me to blindly pick this up from a stuffed shelf but I am immensely grateful for this happy accidental read.
From the sweltering beaches of Spain to the brief respite in Greece, the shadow of a life left behind in gloomy England haunts the plot. Focussed on the mother-daughter relationship, the plot carefully dissects the characters in their roles untill they are stripped of their individual characteristics and only inhabit the mother and daughter identities. Codependent on each other, how far would they go to hold each other back and let each other go?
In 2015, Sofia is in Almeria with her sick mother, Rose, for the elder’s treatment. A student of Anthropology, Sofia has abandoned her thesis and career to devote her life to her mother with the mysterious illness in her legs. Sofia feels stuck in her futile life and thankless work of being a caregiver. Where is the father whose name she is carrying around during all this time? He has found God and resettled in Greece with a young wife and new-born daughter, leaving his former family back in England. Resentment is not, however, Sofia’s way out of this deeply dissatisfying and stagnant life. She is her mother’s legs and her mother inhabits her at her core. How can this dysfunctional codependence work when both of them tire of each other as Spain brings a slew of fresh perspectives in their lives?
The plot is filled with symbolisms told in a stream of consciousness naraative. Her mixed racial identity has shaped Sofia’s life, she is unable to let her father go and cannot free herself from her mother’s existence. Sofia’s dual identity make her stuck in limbo instead of making her multi-faceted. Spain is supposed to make the decisions for her. Spain is their last resort to finding answers for Rose’s dubious illness, they have remortgaged the house for the treatment there.
The book opens with Sofia’s broken laptop, a laptop with dual manufacturing origins. This broken laptop becomes synonymous with Sofia and her situation. But Spain provides a wide range of new people in their lives and by observing them and making space for them in her life, Sofia starts to change.
From the doctor who is not a doctor — Gomez — to Ingrid, Matty, and even Pablo’s chained dog, the characters play a role of either foiling Sofia’s own character and relationships or provide a symbolic touchpoint in the plot. She is chained to her mother’s limping existence to the extent that she has internalised the pained gait of Rose and does not know how to walk otherwise. But Spain teaches her to be bold. She steals a fish, kisses strangers, strikes up new friendships and drives without a license.
Her short trip to Athens to her father’s happy family is deeply awkward. Alexandra, her step-mother, is 3 years older than her and Evangeline is a new-born, unable to direct her anger and retribution to either, she cannot even hold her father accountable. There is sympathy for Rose in her after seeing what her father has sentenced her mother to. In her return to Almeria, there is a defeat, an acceptance of her fate, but there is also resolve that she is slipping her mother’s reins and taking control of her life when the tables turn and make the imagined, the reality.
The title refers to the close proximity to her mother and being unable to unlatch from this toxic mother-daughter relationship. The cover shows Sofia on the beach alone but carrying the weight of her situation. The recurring images of jellyfish, commonly known as Medusas in that part of the world, and their stings on her skin leaving her scarred are referring to Medusa Complex, the petrification of her emotions and the numbness she has embodied.
This deeply personal novel is designed to be uncomfortable through its narrative style and plot. The constant remembering and forgetting gives the story an ebb and flow that is mirrored in the sea they live by. Even though Rose gets pushed to the periphery as the plot progresses, she is a constant presence on the page through Sofia. This is a journey of self-discovery that goes in circles. Feminist in tone, freeing in nature, but depicting a very dependent life of someone stuck in limbo, “Hot Milk” succeeds in capturing the raw wounds of parental relationships and the frayed tether that binds the people together despite it all. I am looking forward to catching the screen adaptation where Sofia is played by Emma Mackey.
You can grab your copy of “Hot Milk” by Deborah Levy here.
(I earn a small commission from every qualified purchase from the link to continue reading and reviewing)
Have you read or watched “Hot Milk” yet? What are your thoughts on this?
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The Calcuttan Bibliophile 
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