MOTHER COUNTRY

Everyone agreed that Shark Grayson wasn't fit to keep her baby. A herion addict, living in a sordid London squat, she was already close to death when her American lover took charge, carrying of the baby Alexander to give him an affluent future and a loving home in the Midwest. But now Alex is 27 and afflicted by his lost roots and a romantic vision of England. When a business trip provides the chance to go and trace his unknown relatives, he discovers that while some British people are, indeed, very hard to get along with, others turn out to be more closely akin to him that he ever could have imagined. Novelist Libby Purves is an award-winning cloumnist for "The Times; she is also a recipient of an O.B.E. for her services to journalism.