September 25, 2017
In this riveting and disturbing memoir, freelance writer Jarrell chronicles living in the shadow of domestic abuse. Jarrell grew up in Los Angeles in the 1970s witnessing her mother’s ongoing abuse at the hands of her father; she and her mother moved out, but to her confusion, her parents reconciled shortly thereafter. Following an intense opening chapter detailing a neighbor’s murder by a boyfriend, Jarrell is forced to reflect into her own story, beginning with her childhood. She does an admirable job of dissecting her family history and the long-lasting emotional wreckage created by domestic abuse. As an adult, she worried about losing the safe life she’d built for herself, and she struggled with anxiety and self-pity. Once Jarrell established a family of her own, she began processing the toll her parent’s violent relationship took on her emotional maturity. While raising her own daughter, Jarrell had a revelation: “Rather than being the child waiting for love and approval, it was time for me to be the mother generously offering such love and understanding to her children even when they rejected her.” Jarrell’s story is simultaneously unassuming and painful to read.
An essayist pens an ode to womanhood in this debut memoir. When the young, single mother who lived across the street from Jarrell was murdered, it triggered insecurities about her own upbringing: "It was her aloneness. That old, familiar, just-we-two aloneness I couldn't bear to see up close again." The author was raised by her mother, with periodic appearances from her handsome father, a charismatic yet manipulative man they called Nick. Her mother wed Nick at age 16. Jarrell recounts tales about their early relationship, "his jealousy and her bruises," with a sense of dread. Once the author was born, her mother saved up enough money to leave her father, leading to a series of childhood stories linked by the inherent danger of inhabiting a female body--from Jarrell seeing a woman get harassed by three adolescent boys to Nick voicing his disturbing opinions about "good girls." Later, in the author's adult relationships, she took great pains to avoid her mother's mistakes. Still, she found herself shacking up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Wes, a dead-end boyfriend who was not completely unlike Nick, and learning to cope with her husband Brad's imperfections. What shines in these autobiographical essays is Jarrell's rendering of her mother, an honest examination of this capable, desirable, and well-traveled woman who was nonetheless unable to resist Nick's pull. Their mother-daughter relationship is more poignant than any love story (in one stirring vignette, the two crammed into a tiny single bed on vacation because they couldn't bear to sleep in separate rooms) and similarly fraught with complications. These difficulties included Jarrell's disgust when her mother repeatedly succumbed to Nick's charms. The author has published essays in the New York Times and the Huffington Post, and her skill is evident in her deliberate prose. Regarding her father's infidelity, she simply writes about her parents: "Twice he'd told her to go to the doctor to see if he'd given her gonorrhea." Though the settings of Jarrell's stories range from Camden, Maine, to Italy and Los Angeles, the author's small-town Americana tone is reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates. The work's lasting message is that love, like Jarrell's prose, is both painful and beautiful. A stunning series of recollections with a feminist slant.
COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)
Starred review from October 1, 2017
An essayist pens an ode to womanhood in this debut memoir.When the young, single mother who lived across the street from Jarrell was murdered, it triggered insecurities about her own upbringing: "It was her aloneness. That old, familiar, just-we-two aloneness I couldn't bear to see up close again." The author was raised by her mother, with periodic appearances from her handsome father, a charismatic yet manipulative man they called Nick. Her mother wed Nick at age 16. Jarrell recounts tales about their early relationship, "his jealousy and her bruises," with a sense of dread. Once the author was born, her mother saved up enough money to leave her father, leading to a series of childhood stories linked by the inherent danger of inhabiting a female body--from Jarrell seeing a woman get harassed by three adolescent boys to Nick voicing his disturbing opinions about "good girls." Later, in the author's adult relationships, she took great pains to avoid her mother's mistakes. Still, she found herself shacking up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Wes, a dead-end boyfriend who was not completely unlike Nick, and learning to cope with her husband Brad's imperfections. What shines in these autobiographical essays is Jarrell's rendering of her mother, an honest examination of this capable, desirable, and well-traveled woman who was nonetheless unable to resist Nick's pull. Their mother-daughter relationship is more poignant than any love story (in one stirring vignette, the two crammed into a tiny single bed on vacation because they couldn't bear to sleep in separate rooms) and similarly fraught with complications. These difficulties included Jarrell's disgust when her mother repeatedly succumbed to Nick's charms. The author has published essays in the New York Times and the Huffington Post, and her skill is evident in her deliberate prose. Regarding her father's infidelity, she simply writes about her parents: "Twice he'd told her to go to the doctor to see if he'd given her gonorrhea." Though the settings of Jarrell's stories range from Camden, Maine, to Italy and Los Angeles, the author's small-town Americana tone is reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates. The work's lasting message is that love, like Jarrell's prose, is both painful and beautiful.A stunning series of recollections with a feminist slant.
COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.