Where are all the grandparents in modern fiction?

After writing a novel about a grandmother, I found an audience desperate to see themselves represented

Considering how important grandparents are in many modern families - plugging the gaps and picking up the pieces when the stresses and strains on working parents get too much - isn’t it surprising that we don’t find more of them in contemporary fiction?

There is of course no shortage of memorable grandparents in children’s literature, beaming benignly – or occasionally malevolently – from the bookshelves: from the four grandparents in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, via Grannie Island and Granma Mainland in Mairi Hedderwick’s Katie Morag series to David Walliams’ Gangsta Granny, grandparents seem a far richer source of inspiration than boring old parents.

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