Wild Women Reading Part 4
No 4: Books for curious, spirited dreamers with an awakening on their to-do list!
Welcome back book lovers to our fourth instalment of Wild Women Reading; monthly recommendations from me and author Tanya Shadrick for curious readers in search of some new thinking.
Last month's choices were laden with desire, we opted for Leone Ross' This One Sky Day’ and ‘Simple Passion’ by Annie Ernaux but today we've wandered down the motherhood path. Tanya and I discuss the value of looking back on our relationship with the most significant woman in our own lives, our mothers.
I hope these two books below inspire you or guide you in some way and we'd welcome your suggestions in the comments below on books about mother/daughter relationships which may have helped guide you. I often find I have subconsciously picked books to read which have the story of mother love at their core.
And indeed I wrote my first book about it so I am always in search of new novels and non-fiction which explore this subject, given I have focussed on it for much of my magazine and newspaper career.
So do take a moment to subscribe to our Wild Women Reading newsletter and pop a book recommendation here for those reading along with us in the comments below.
LORRAINE’S CHOICE
To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Viv Albertine's no nonsense, smart, funny writing and recommend it to everyone, especially women in midlife. Viv, 67, is the full package for me, the ultimate combination of things I love; fashion, music, irreverence and consistent feminist rebellion. She is a punk legend (a founding member of The Slits) and her 2014 book Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, was a joy.
But' To Throw Away Unopened' is an entirely different book, it chronicles the lives of her dysfunctional family and unpicks the complex, and difficult relationship she had with her mother who left a bag of diaries, legal documents and letters with 'To Throw Away Unopened" for her daughter to find following her death. The words were written in Tippex on an old flight bag. An entirely provocative move so characteristic of the woman Viv describes in the book.
I have read many mothering memoirs, many mothering self-help books and written much about the subject as a mum of four myself but this book resonated more than anything I had encountered before and I think it is because of the retrospective exploration of Viv's mum's life, the way she sets out to find out more about her mother as a woman. It's revelatory.
Unexpectedly I have thought more about mothering now that I can no longer have a child ( I am 54) and now that my two eldest have left home. It's been a surprising development, I didn't think I would be discovering more about my own relationship with my mother - which is complex - now that I am out of the maternal trenches myself and into a place which feels easier all round on the mothering front. I have started to remember all sorts of moments or experiences from my own childhood and have been able to put them more clearly in the context of what was going on in my mother's life at the time, rather than viewing her only through the lens of being my mum. I am still processing much of this. I left home early as Viv did, I was 16, and I wonder how my relationship with my mum would have changed if I'd been around longer.
To Throw Away Unopened describes Viv's flashbacks of the night her mother died, it makes for simultaneously hilarious and desperately uncomfortable reading, it is written with great skill. She paints a true picture of her mother, the woman she credits with empowering her to lead an unconventional life, consistently questioning everything. And for that Viv is grateful. This book made me realise that even if a mother/daughter relationship is difficult, even if awful moments have been shared there is still a bond to be found or perhaps treasured. That forgiveness isn't always necessary, that sometimes understanding the richness of the personalities of the women our mothers are is a fascinating, illuminating and continuing journey. Happy Reading.
TANYA’S CHOICE
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
Fiercely funny, fiercely written, this memoir by Vivian Gornick on the difficult but very close relationship with her mother is mesmerising from the first page to the last. It frequently appears on critics’ lists of the world’s top 50 memoirs, and yet I rarely meet women in the UK who’ve encountered it.
Structured loosely around regular walks the forty-five year old writer takes with her antagonistic mother, we join them as they circle Manhattan and their past, caught in an awful but enduring lockstep. Everything is a point of conflict – clothes, men, education (the mother’s lack of it; the daughter’s stubborn pursuit of learning) – and it seems impossible that either woman will ever be able to see things from the other’s perspective. And yet their talks are so shockingly intimate too – sex, love, bodies. The scene where Vivian mocks her mother’s desperate lifelong devotion to the pursuit of male love, leading to a furious chase scene through their small Bronx apartment is among the most unforgettable book moments I’ve ever read.
When I was writing my own memoir, I knew I wanted to bring my mother and the social pressures she laboured under to the page in the same unsparing way: to try and step free from only seeing her as the woman I wanted more from and better. To show our fierce misunderstandings over tables, through doorways, and to emerge then into a more equal way of seeing and being together. To understand the different forces that had been bearing down on both us, on she no less than me, from the moments of our birth as women in this world.
So many readers of The Cure For Sleep are writing to me about the long stalemate of the relationship with their mothers – there is so much they want to say that they nothing. To everyone stuck in that restrained place, I recommend taking a walk on the wild side with the Gornick women where nothing is ever held back...