I spent this entire memoir waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s written with the strong implication that the author has been profoundly traumatized by her childhood, so I kept waiting for the trauma to happen. There are many times when she tells us she doesn’t want us to think too harshly of her parents, and indeed she succeeded, because as far as I can tell they were pretty good.
Here is a comment from her mother, that she regards as scarring:
“When I was having you, Deborah, your dad said to me, ‘As far as I am concerned, the chicken comes before the egg.’ Wasn’t that a lovely thing to say?”
I really don’t see it. What husband wouldn’t prioritize his wife over a fetus?
She finds out her parents don’t have much sex. This is not any of her business, in my view. But it in her view: “It’s the shocking secret at the heart of my existence.”
I can only say: ?
Perhaps the problem is this is my second memoir of a de-industrializing Scotland in the seventies in under a month, and the first was the magically good SHUGGIE BAIN. They are really not in the same league. Let me give you a sample of some insight from this one:
People. We are so tough and so fragile, both at once, we humans
OKAY. I don’t want to be mean. But it really wasn’t my favourite.