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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
Jeanette often refers to her mother as "Mrs Winterson." She's often not human enough to warrant the use of the word mother; she lives in End Time, has possibly never consummated her marriage and certainly never sleeps in the same bed as her husband, and constantly tells her adopted daughter that they only picked her out at the orphanage because Satan led them to the wrong crib. The child Jeanette is formed as a person by the abuse, neglect, and surpassing weirdness of her adoptive mother, but most of all by the lack of love, and love - salvific, grounding love - becomes the theme of adult Jeanette's personal quest and literary career. The redemptive, saving power of both love and literature are major themes of the book, but everything is framed by the trauma of life with mother, and the later attempt to come to terms with being given up for adoption, being mothered by someone without the slightest maternal instinct or skill, and being thrown out of the house as a culmination of years of being locked out of that same house.
Jeanette has here the same mystical but unflinchingly honest prose style as in her novels. This is more a spiritual autobiography than memoir as it's usually understood. Many years and many events are passed over without comment. What matters is the author's quest for love after deep wounding, the literature that becomes her lifeline, the madness she faces later in life, and the way literature saves her again. That, and a very loving girlfriend.
I'm so glad I bought this in hardcover, as I see myself returning to it again and again.
Jeanette has here the same mystical but unflinchingly honest prose style as in her novels. This is more a spiritual autobiography than memoir as it's usually understood. Many years and many events are passed over without comment. What matters is the author's quest for love after deep wounding, the literature that becomes her lifeline, the madness she faces later in life, and the way literature saves her again. That, and a very loving girlfriend.
I'm so glad I bought this in hardcover, as I see myself returning to it again and again.
Striking and disturbing memoir of adoption and attachment. Depicts both the trauma and resilience resulting from a childhood with spiritually and emotionally damaging parents. Read for NC-NASW professional book club.
Reading a memoir written by an actual writer is like a breath of fresh air. Like many lesbians, I had a hard core Jeanette Winterson phase that lasted through most of college and beyond. Reading this, though, I feel like I understand her writing so much more. I even understand the things I dislike about her writing. Most compelling was her struggle to be educated, to read in a place where books were forbidden. And her remorse over voting for Margaret Thatcher! At a certain point, she writes about wanting to bring everyone who has criticized her for being arrogant and thinking too highly of herself to the place in her life when she was living in her car and making her way to Oxford. I get it now. I appreciate that she was able to bring me there.
Just... Wow ❤️ Spectacular. Ripped my heart open in the best way.
The title and the cover are deceptive. This is not a happy go lucky story of a funny well-adjusted family. There is some humor but it is dark.
A book that approaches events in the author's life in an honest, balanced, and even humorous way.
I knew Accrington, and Peel Park in particular. But I'm a firm outsider. What else could I be, ever?
Jeanette writes lovingly of that unusual town. Her intonation is perfectly Accy. Her appreciation of (and part in) Accrington humour is precise. If this book does one thing for posterity, it's to tell a wide audience of the values of that small place; its tradition of working-class learning and its pride in itself. She also records its emotional deprivations.
Her difficulties in loving are shown in a kind of artistic contrast. When she writes of being greeted by her family of origin, I wept. When she moved on to sketch her difficulty in accepting that love, I reached the end with a sense of numbed shock.
I hope you find peace and love in the end, Jeanette.
Jeanette writes lovingly of that unusual town. Her intonation is perfectly Accy. Her appreciation of (and part in) Accrington humour is precise. If this book does one thing for posterity, it's to tell a wide audience of the values of that small place; its tradition of working-class learning and its pride in itself. She also records its emotional deprivations.
Her difficulties in loving are shown in a kind of artistic contrast. When she writes of being greeted by her family of origin, I wept. When she moved on to sketch her difficulty in accepting that love, I reached the end with a sense of numbed shock.
I hope you find peace and love in the end, Jeanette.
Jeanette Winterson's memoir covers the same ground as Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, replacing its softer edges with harsh reality, and then moves beyond it. The choice to skip approximately half of her life (and the majority of her professional career) is probably questionable, but if the book is viewed as one woman's coming to terms with both her adoption and her own perceived deficiencies in the giving of love, it's successful.
Writing one's memoir at 52 means that the story is far from over: this ends, then follows its conclusion with a coda suggesting that anything could change in Winterson's life at any time. Nothing is absolute - but if we've seen the beginning and the end (so far) of Winterson's story, would we really want to come back to read the middle?
Writing one's memoir at 52 means that the story is far from over: this ends, then follows its conclusion with a coda suggesting that anything could change in Winterson's life at any time. Nothing is absolute - but if we've seen the beginning and the end (so far) of Winterson's story, would we really want to come back to read the middle?
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced