A review by kali76
The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie

4.0

I am glad I listened to this as an audiobook, as the author reads it herself, with her Canadian accent and wry sense of humour that lifts the words from the page. I found this memoir of dealing with the effects of her mother's delusions on her family extremely familiar, and it resurrected memories of my Nana I had long thought forgotten. The flamboyant clothing, the reading of novels in a multitude of languages, the claims to be all kinds of professors, the hoarding, the enslavement of my grandfather as a menial drudge, the 'how dare you disobey me' expression, the physical assault of people at the post office or supermarket, the get-rich-quick schemes and land scams she poured my grandfather's pension money into, the ingratiating of herself into the Yorkshire Ripper police investigation, the OTT home decor like she lived in the Tsar's Winter Palace, the spinning of so many identities that no one knew who she really was, and the final act of dying alone in an institution.
I cannot gauge the literary impact of this book on others, as my personal associations are so strong. I suppose some readers might marvel that there are such erratic people in the world. There are. And they hurt their families, who try to live as normally as they can. Until brought back into their orbit.