Sons and Lovers

This novel follows Paul Morel, who grows up in a mining community in Nottinghamshire, in a home marked by the strained marriage of his coarse, hard-drinking father and his refined, ambitious mother. As Paul becomes a young man, he is pulled between his mother's intense devotion and the claims of the women who love him. Drawing on Lawrence's own youth, the book gives a rich picture of working-class life, family loyalty and the struggle to become independent. It is often considered his most accessible and moving novel, and an important study of a close and difficult bond between mother and son.