Mother Shadow: A Meditation on Maternal Inheritance (2026) by Australian writer, journalist & lawyer Cynthia Banham is in part the story of Banham finding out that her great-grandmother was not orphaned but abandoned at birth by an unnamed mother.

Initially appalled at the discovery a mother could abandon her baby, and wanting to find out more about her great-grandmother, Banham & her family visit Bologna in Italy where she discovers that during the 19th century, babies were often abandoned to avoid shame.

Cynthia Banham subsequently reflects on whether her initial harsh judgement of her great-great-grandmother was connected to her own mothering which is ‘different’ because she lost her legs in the 2007 Garuda Flight 200 Crash which killed 21 people.