alcoholism
Eighteen Seconds
Storyteller Louise Beech, or more formally Louise Jane Lady M Puffbrains Beech, endured a traumatic childhood and chaotic life until she was fifty, at which point she severed all connections with her mother. Her memoir, eighteen seconds, tells her painful story.
Why eighteen seconds? It’s a phrase her mother used:
I wish you could feel the way depression does for eighteen seconds. Just eighteen seconds, so you’d know how awful it is.
Writing is Louise’s safe place, her creative outlet. After years of not being heard and hiding the horrors of home, writing about the bad times, giving voice to her emotions, has proved cathartic.
I still turn to my stories to escape reality. Fiction has been like a filter. A way to let in difficult feelings, gently, bit by bit, in small paragraph-sized lumps so they are easier for me to digest.
And because her writing is the mechanism by which she shares her deepest self, initial rejection of her novels feels personal. Later publication at the age of 44, selection for shortlists and prizes, positive reviews – all these things confirm her private dreams, and give her the acceptance she always craved.
Hers is a story of sexual, psychological, physical and narcissistic abuse – abuse which was largely ignored or overlooked.
We were the masters of silence, of doing as we were told and staying quiet, of putting up and shutting up, so how could anyone have known?
Her mother, Patricia/Trish, was beautiful but troubled and not the caring nurturing person the children wanted and needed. An alcoholic, depressive narcissist, she constantly belittled and insulted her four children, and tried to foist them onto others, so that she could ‘have a life‘. But despite manipulating situations to get her own way, depression haunted her, and she made several attempts to end her life, including a spectacular fall from the Humber Bridge which she survived, but with catastrophic injuries.
It was as a consequence of these suicide attempts, and prolonged stays in psychiatric institutions, that Louise and her siblings knew the value of being secure with someone reliable and safe and nurturing who wasn’t drunk or depressed: their maternal grandmother. For much of their childhood too, Louise was also mother to her twin sisters and her brother. She herself suffered on and off from eating disorders, and began to bury things too traumatic or painful to understand or to face.
Their father was an engineer and musician, a remote figure, probably autistic, who beat his wife and took little interest in his children. When Louise was eight, without consulting him, Trish left, taking the children with her. He vanished eight years later and didn’t reappear for 26 years. Left alone Trish simply found a string of other unsuitable men and lurched from one to the next, caring nothing for the impact on her children or their safety. The girls have largely blocked out the sexual abuse they suffered.
It’s a shocking tale courageously told. A tale of a mother who drank and jumped, but whose children paid the price.
She stood on the grenade, but the shrapnel hit her offspring.
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.
Hay Book Festival
I’m like a pig in muck this week!! Hay Book Festival is online again. Wahey! They’ve already reached upwards of 2 million people, and I feel privileged to be one of those visiting and enjoying such thought-provoking and stimulating events. I’m immensely grateful to the team that ensures it happens. They’ve had more than their fair share of technical glitches unfortunately, but I think we’re all acclimatising to those kinds of issues in this era of Zoom. Puts our own mishaps into perspective.
In this first week, I’ve already listened to vaccine hesitancy, the effects of the pandemic, motherhood, grief, the first human cyborg (who has MND), deafness, adoption, racial discrimination … I won’t bore you with a rundown on them all, but three really stood out as exceptionally memorable for me. (Please excuse the quality of the photo – screenshot during the performances, so no time for finesse!)
The title, Life and Death with Covid, sums up one brilliant session. Dr Rachel Clarke, Palliative Care Specialist/author, who’s always good value, was in the chair and sensitively and confidently steered the conversation between herself, the legendary author/poet/presenter Michael Rosen, and a specialist in critical care and anaesthetics/author, Dr Jim Down.
The two doctors spoke eloquently about the impact of the pandemic on staff, and the imperative and willingness to care – really care – for all their patients, be they serial killers or prime ministers, to the end of their lives. Their selfless dedication shone through. Michael Rosen spoke from the Covid patient’s angle. He survived 48 days in intensive care and 3 months in hospital, and compared the attention he was given to the love that drives a father to sit all night beside the bed of his sleeping son. The NHS, in his judgement, is the most ‘caring collective cooperative thing’ he could ever imagine – polar opposite of the Holocaust that killed so many of his relations. One of the most engrossing literary events ever. I simply HAD to buy all three books: Many Different Kinds of Love (Rosen), Breathtaking (Clarke), Life Support (Down). Reviews will doubtless follow on this blog! They arrived lovingly encased in red tissue paper too!
I’ve heard Ruby Wax and Alastair Campbell on the topic of their depression before – both appeared again this year with new books to talk about, but new to me was travel writer and teacher of creative writing, Horatio Clare, talking about his mental health experience.
In Heavy Light: A journey through madness, mania and healing, he has eloquently captured the reality of being sectioned/detained when he developed bipolar disorder, an action he believes saved him. And he really underlined the importance of listening to the patient and tailoring care to individual need. What an articulate and sympathetic speaker. I was riveted.
Then there was Rev Richard Coles speaking to psychotherapist Julia Samuel (the ‘Queen of Grief’ as Richard described her). He spoke eloquently of the devastation, and the powerful emotions of anger, guilt, emptiness, he has experienced following the death of his beloved husband David, who was an alcoholic as well as fellow priest. No empty platitudes or trite sayings or pious hopes from him! And what sensitivity he must bring to bereaved parishioners. Julia Samuel concluded with poignant accuracy that, though he is still grieving acutely, he is taking David with him into a planned future of ministering to prisoners where the effects of addiction are seen as their harshest. A wonderfully honest and moving conversation, laced with humour, about a subject that needs more openness and candour. I’ve heard Coles speaking before; here I think he was at his best.
To be continued …
Portable magic!
Famous American author, Stephen King, has described books as ‘a uniquely portable magic’ – and he wasn’t referring to the news this week that inmates are smuggling books into prison laced with hallucinogenic drugs! No, books have a unique potential and power to open up worlds and horizons and opportunities. They can transport us into another dimension altogether. They can influence our mental wellbeing, our opinions, our relationships, our empathy with others. British novelist and journalist, Matt Haig, goes further: he maintains that books saved his life, rescuing him from severe depression.
With that in mind, I look up at my own shelves and suddenly the feeling of you-should-tidy-these becomes enough-to-keep-me-sane-for-decades.
Yes, OK, I know I should tidy and sort them, but somehow reading them always seems so much more attractive and urgent. And I am doing a kind of sort – transferring the to-be-read to the now-read sections.
As part of my mental tidy up I decided to return to a familiar author and complete her set of novels. They fall into the same kind of genre as Jodi Picoult: family relationships, moral quandaries, suspense, secrets – on the face of it a similar vein to my own kind of writing. And as you know I like to keep up with ‘the competition’.
Diane Chamberlain is the lady in question. With a background in social work and psychotherapy, she certainly understands how people tick and I like her light touch; she doesn’t labour the psychology or force information upon the reader. But what I didn’t know until now is that she goes a stage further than most writers: she sometimes puts herself into a light trance to get inside the heads and hearts of her characters … Wow! Risky stuff, but a unique take on living inside one’s characters! And perhaps it’s that awareness and sensitivity that come through in her novels.
Before the Storm
tells the story of the Lockwood family struggling to deal with postnatal depression, tragic deaths, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and betrayals. Because of the damage to his brain caused by his mother’s drinking, 15-year-old Andy’s take on the world is simple and black-and-white. Then one day he gets trapped in a serious fire in a building full of teenagers. Somehow he manages to use his initiative and guide other children to safety through a window in the men’s toilets, and to his naive delight he’s hailed as a hero. But it’s not all happy ever after. Several people die in the fire, some are terribly damaged, whole families are wrecked. What’s more, adulation turns to suspicion and hatred when Andy is suspected of setting the fire himself. The Lockwood family regroup, Andy’s sister, mother and uncle join forces to keep him out of prison, but rescue comes in the end from a most challenging source. Guilt and grief abound. Told through the voice of all four main protagonists it’s an interesting and thought-provoking read. Just how far would I go to protect my children? How well do I really know them?
Secrets She Left Behind is a sequel to Before the Storm, but fear not, I won’t reveal any spoilers to the earlier novel. In Secrets Chamberlain cleverly unravels other dimensions in the lives of the characters at the heart of the story about the devastating fire. Central to the plot is Sara Weston, whose son Keith was terribly burned in the blaze, whose best friend Laurel has every reason to shun her, and whose poverty stands in sharp contrast to the wealth and privilege of the Lockwoods. Now Sara has mysteriously vanished leaving a raft of secrets behind her. There’s a huge over-weighting of deceit in this sequel, with a rather improbable number of people leading secret lives; relationships and dynamics distorted by the cycle of revelations; and individual members struggling to come to terms with the past and create new futures – all in the claustrophobic confines of a tiny island community. Boundaries between good and bad, perpetrator and victim, become blurred. And again the reader is left questioning: Just how far would I go to forgive those who ruined my life? How would I react to betrayal and rejection?
I must confess I was expecting a very different denouement in Secrets She Left Behind. That, however, would have been a different book. Nevertheless imagining the ending I would have given it gave my writing-brain a healthy work out.
The Shadow Wife tells the story of Joelle D’Angelo aka Shanti Joy Angel. Divorced and childless, Joelle is grieving for her dearest friend, Mara, who has suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage after giving birth. Shocked to her core, Joelle turns to the only other person who understands her pain, Mara’s husband, Liam, for comfort. But gradually their relationship changes and after one illicit night, Joelle finds herself pregnant. Determined not to compound her mistake, Joelle decides she must leave her home and job as a social worker and begin a new life elsewhere, but before she goes she makes one last ditch effort to help Mara recover. She turns to Carlynn Kling, a lady with mysterious powers of healing who saved Joelle’s own life when she was a baby. The interweaving of two timelines in this book is cleverly handled and the unravelling of the past sits perfectly with the present. A good read and a tender tale of love and loss and loyalty. Could I live with the choices these characters faced? How would I react if my parent rejected me? Or if I fell in love with my best friend’s husband? Or if a tiny lie could transform my future immeasurably? I don’t know. But this book has challenged me to think about my own moral code and my boundaries.
There, that’s the Diane Chamberlain section complete and re-filed.