Scan barcode
alisonb13's review
5.0
Poignant series of essays on our never simple relationships with our parents, so often unresolved at their death. Struck by how many of these writers had fraught memories/relationships. Editor Susan Wyndham's piece one of the few that spoke of a close relationship. Some beautiful and thought-provoking writing from well known authors including Helen Garner, Thomas Keneally and David Marr.
Truly moving collection which I will dip back into.
Truly moving collection which I will dip back into.
archytas's review
3.0
So this book made me angry and sad and mostly I didn't like reading it. This is, however, no fault at all of the writers. I think my take-home from reading this is that grief is an intensely personal thing, and any attempt to use common experience to process it is doomed to failure.
I bought this book when it came out, about six months after my father's sudden death. I was struggling to process the unexpected enormity of my grief, and I thought this seemed perfect to connect. As my partner got ill, and life got harder, I kinda shelved the book, as my grief retreated along with my capacity to experience difficult emotions. But it sat there, winking at me on the kindle, for about a year, and eventually I decided it was time to give it a go.
I braced myself for a sad and wrenching emotional journey.
And instead, by the third story, I realised mostly I was just pissed off.
It is challenging to admit this, because it was a petty and ignoble pissed-offedness. Most of this compendium is the story of Baby Boomers coming to terms with their parent's slow decline to death in their 80s and 90s - tales of nursing homes, dementia and the slow shrinkage of very old age. And all I could think is that I have been denied that with my father, who died in his 60s. There was a part of brain, hopefully most of it, which could appreciate the intensity of this experience, but it was drowned out by the petty, childish selfish bit yelling; "Stuff you! I WANTED that." Even the moving accounts of subsequent tragedies, deaths of siblings in the wake, failed to entirely move me on from emotional petulance.
An herein lies the second flaw in conceiving of this kind of anthology. The death of a parent is such a profoundly destablising thing maybe, because our parents are so much part of our psyche. As Tom Keneally shrewdly observes in his chapter, we never stop wanting from our parents. Part of the dark flipside to that of course, is that we never stop seeing our parents as ultimately revolving around us - what they owe us, how they feel about us, what they gave us and what they didn't. In a single essay alone, this relationship can seem profound. Read in a series of essays, the childishness, perhaps even the unfairness, of this becomes more apparent. I found myself thinking "why is someone else's life always about you?", wanting to see the parents through eyes less demanding, less dependent.
As I tried to haul my inner sulky kid into line to embrace the stories, some of the later chapters did really resonate with me - especially Susan Wyndham's own Disbelief, one of the strongest pieces of writing in the book. The final piece, by Linda Neil, also ended on an appropriately strong note, giving a sense of closure to the whole experience. Notes from the whole do jump out at me.
I'm glad to have read this because I think in an unintended way it gave me insight into my own grief, and honestly relieved it wasn't the emotional roller coaster I expected. But I think I would suggest it to those not struggling with grief, actually, as I think one of my take homes is that each of these journeys is a solo affair in the end.
I bought this book when it came out, about six months after my father's sudden death. I was struggling to process the unexpected enormity of my grief, and I thought this seemed perfect to connect. As my partner got ill, and life got harder, I kinda shelved the book, as my grief retreated along with my capacity to experience difficult emotions. But it sat there, winking at me on the kindle, for about a year, and eventually I decided it was time to give it a go.
I braced myself for a sad and wrenching emotional journey.
And instead, by the third story, I realised mostly I was just pissed off.
It is challenging to admit this, because it was a petty and ignoble pissed-offedness. Most of this compendium is the story of Baby Boomers coming to terms with their parent's slow decline to death in their 80s and 90s - tales of nursing homes, dementia and the slow shrinkage of very old age. And all I could think is that I have been denied that with my father, who died in his 60s. There was a part of brain, hopefully most of it, which could appreciate the intensity of this experience, but it was drowned out by the petty, childish selfish bit yelling; "Stuff you! I WANTED that." Even the moving accounts of subsequent tragedies, deaths of siblings in the wake, failed to entirely move me on from emotional petulance.
An herein lies the second flaw in conceiving of this kind of anthology. The death of a parent is such a profoundly destablising thing maybe, because our parents are so much part of our psyche. As Tom Keneally shrewdly observes in his chapter, we never stop wanting from our parents. Part of the dark flipside to that of course, is that we never stop seeing our parents as ultimately revolving around us - what they owe us, how they feel about us, what they gave us and what they didn't. In a single essay alone, this relationship can seem profound. Read in a series of essays, the childishness, perhaps even the unfairness, of this becomes more apparent. I found myself thinking "why is someone else's life always about you?", wanting to see the parents through eyes less demanding, less dependent.
As I tried to haul my inner sulky kid into line to embrace the stories, some of the later chapters did really resonate with me - especially Susan Wyndham's own Disbelief, one of the strongest pieces of writing in the book. The final piece, by Linda Neil, also ended on an appropriately strong note, giving a sense of closure to the whole experience. Notes from the whole do jump out at me.
I'm glad to have read this because I think in an unintended way it gave me insight into my own grief, and honestly relieved it wasn't the emotional roller coaster I expected. But I think I would suggest it to those not struggling with grief, actually, as I think one of my take homes is that each of these journeys is a solo affair in the end.
More...