addiction
The story behind the crime
Published author, Wally Lamb, has always loved teaching. So when the York Correctional Institution in Connecticut in the USA appealed for volunteers to help combat the despair and defeat that had overtaken the female prison population in the wake of a series of successful and attempted suicides at the turn of the century, he responded with an offer of writing workshops.
But teaching writing in such a setting proved to be a considerable challenge; it took time and patience to penetrate the barriers the inmates raised. However, once the women let down their guard and found their voices, he was amazed at the courage and insights they exhibited. It became very evident that they had been imprisoned by abuse, rejection and their own self-destructive impulses long before they had entered the criminal justice system. They carried scars spanning their whole lives. The process he started not only unlocked their creativity but began a transformative journey of healing, and a pathway from despair to hope and triumph.
In Couldn’t Keep it to Myself, their stories have been collected together, and present a moving and powerful testament to the potential for writing – regardless of its literary merit – to enable vulnerable people to gain self-awareness and the motivation to change their lives for the better. As their mentor and facilitator Lamb kept his own editing of their work to a minimum in order to allow these authentic voices to tell it as it was for them, tweaking just enough to ensure clarity and pace and drama.
The end result makes shocking reading. These are experiences most of us only read of in fiction. Childhood rape. Poverty and abuse. Dysfunction on a grand scale. Rejection and discrimination. Cruelty and thuggery. Depression and full blown psychotic illness and addiction. Degradation and dehumanisation. Suicidal ideation and PTSD. Without exception, all the authors describe histories fraught with such horrors.
But, by encouragement and sensitive guidance, by publishing their collective stories, Lamb has unearthed the humanity in the lost and the lonely, the victims of drink and drugs and self-destructive habits and mental illness and society’s prejudices … and given them a voice.
… little by little, I came to understand who I was beneath all those bad habits and bad decisions.
… no one deserves to be talked down to and assumed valueless – no matter what their poisons.
I began writing about my life because it was the only way I knew how to keep my sanity in this place of confusion. My writing is a sanctuary in the middle of each day.
Writing gives me a sense of peace.
Writing’s helped me figure out who I am and who I want to be. My body’s still in prison but my spirit’s finally free.
Chick lit? Hardly!
I’ve never been into what used to be called chick lit, now more properly light romance – ‘refined sugar for the brain’ – but realised this week it was presumptuous of me to dismiss it without a fair trial. It’s been a rather fraught week with a lot to exercise my mind, so I needed something undemanding, and this seemed as good a week as any to give it a whirl. One name came to me: during lockdown I attended lots of on-line book festivals and a bubbly author with a lovely Irish accent impressed me with her charm and eloquence – Marian Keyes. I raked around and … yep, found one of her novels. I’ve since read her biography and apologise unreservedly for classifying her so glibly. In reality her books defy genre and sell in their thousands.
This Charming Man is billed as dealing with serious issues but is light reading with plenty of humour, so it should be the just sort of thing I can dip into for distraction that won’t bog me down in angst. … or so I thought.
The ‘charming man’ in question is charismatic politician Paddy de Courcy. Word is out that he’s getting married, and there are four women in particular who have every reason to feel powerful reactions to this fact. The tale is told through their eyes with clever changes of font and style to anchor their stories.
Stylist and fashion guru Lola Daly has a vested interest because she’s his current girlfriend – or thought she was – but she’s certainly not the bride-to-be. Devastated by the news, she vanishes to a rural retreat to try to get perspective. From childhood she’s had a real fear of abandonment, but it keeps happening. What did she do wrong to lose Paddy? Was her Dad right: Never trust a politician? She’s left feeling worthless, her confidence in shreds, and this spills over into her work life, leading to her quitting city life and settling for a very different kind of existence in a rural backwater, while she tries to regain her self respect and confidence.
Journalist Grace Gildee is desperate to get a story on Paddy de Courcy from the inside and thinks Lola would give her a real scoop. But even big money won’t tempt Lola to talk. Then Grace is asked … no, ordered to go and interview the new fiancee in her professional capacity. She can’t! She insists she can’t! Her integrity would be compromised because of her personal connection to Paddy de Courcy. But she’s given no choice; she has to go. The bride-to-be herself will brook no other.
Grace’s twin sister Marnie is one reason for her resistance. Paddy was her first love, and she can’t forget him. But Paddy de Courcy has had a devastating effect on Marnie’s life. Her tale unravels as she sinks further and further into alcoholism.
And then there’s the fourth woman, the real bride-to-be, Alicia Thornton, determined to be the perfect wife. Someone with her own scores to settle. Who has her eye on the ultimate prize.
Well, this is certainly no ‘refined sugar’! Keyes took a long time writing it and says from the outset that it honours all women who are the victims of domestic abuse. But, whilst abuse certainly lies at its core, the book deals with far more issues than that: alcoholism; cross dressing; press harassment; Irish politics; racism; addiction, ageism. Gritty, dark, troubling, but woven through with light touches and even outright comedy.
It’s not my kind of reading (and it’s a veritable door-stopper at almost 900 pages long!!) but I take my hat off to a very talented writer. I shan’t make the mistake of dismissing such literature so lightly in future.
Countdown
What a week. The brutal murder of MP Jo Cox; Tim Peake‘s return to earth after six months in space; an historic referendum on the UK’s position in Europe; … I’ve counted down to my own author-event at Blackwell’s Bookshop this evening, not just in days-to-the-referendum, but in significant news flashes. And I want to pay my own small tribute to Jo Cox and her family who have epitomised dignity, humanity, unity and compassion. If only her legacy could continue to overrule the vitriol and power-struggling and falsehoods which have characterised this campaign.
So, tonight we launch my latest novel, Inside of Me, into the bigger world, courtesy of Blackwell’s Bookshop in Edinburgh.
I always knew it would be hard to do justice to this one without giving away a surprise but significant element which is only revealed at the end. So I had to explore various angles which might ‘sell’ the book to a live audience without containing spoilers. On this occasion I decided to concentrate on two points: body image and disappearance.
I suspect that only a tiny minority of people go through life perfectly content with their own body image; I’m certainly not among their number. All manner of hang-ups, me. All my life. And sobering statistics for suicide, mental health, eating disorders, self-harm, obsessions and addictions, cosmetic procedures, gender changes, all bear testament to a wider societal dissatisfaction. Small wonder, fueled as we are by the messages, overt and subliminal, from magazines and the internet; from social media; peer pressures; completely unrealistic expectations and cultural ideals. My book fits into this context, exploring what it means to live with unhappiness and troubled thoughts and unachievable goals.
One example will suffice: 15-year-old India Grayson looks in the mirror and perceives a size 3 body as grossly overweight. She aspires to have the courage to binge eat and deliberately vomit. Her mother can only stand on the sidelines, powerless to prevent her beloved daughter, on the very cusp of adulthood, starving herself to the point of collapse, forced to wait for medical intervention until the teenager is at death’s door or at imminent risk of significant deterioration. But India’s not seeking death; she’s seeking control. So how far should she be allowed to go along the path to self-destruction? What right has her mother to intervene?
Disappearance is the second recurring theme I chose to speak about. Three teenage girls vanish one after another. So does India’s beloved dad, leaving a neatly folded pile of clothes on a windy beach. Are these events connected? India’s mother has her niggling suspicions, doubts and fears but she’s suppressed them and certainly hasn’t shared them with a single soul. But now, eight years after his supposed suicide, India is convinced she heard her father’s voice on a crowded London station. She has to find him. The truth when it emerges is not what anyone expected; it challenges their notions of family and relationships, of image and identity. It makes us wonder, to what extent is it right to pursue our own goals and ambitions, when they conflict with the interests of others?
As part of my thinking about body image, I’ve been reading A Lot like Eve by Joanna Jepson. A newly ordained curate, Jepson came to fame in the early 2000s when she challenged the courts over cases of abortion for nothing more disabling than a hare lip and cleft palate. I remember her well – and her arguments. She was uniquely qualified to adopt this cause having herself been the victim of bullying and humiliation because of a facial disfigurement, and having also witnessed reaction to her brother who has Down’s Syndrome. What I didn’t know is how she has struggled with her faith and calling. This book is a moving exploration of her own battle to find acceptance and peace in her personal as well as her religious life. And who else would see their calling to be chaplain to the fashion industry?