A memoir is always going to be a reflective piece but the extent of where it goes is up to its author: how much do you want to expose of your life and is it necessarily cathartic to do it?
I get a sense from reading this that Emily Brown is happy to share and that looking back and airing things she remembers, things that have shaped her, is a reconciliation with a past that was not always smooth or easily understood by her younger self. Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing as is the context that reaching middle years can bring, with the life lived by the author providing a different viewpoint or an additional lens.
The funeral of a beloved uncle is the springboard that launches this narrative into the past. Brown explores her childhood and what is striking about her remembrances is the discord that she feels in her relationship with both her parents but primarily, her mother.
I felt all the way through the book that Brown was grasping for understanding of her parents and their relationship. She talks of arguments which she was privy to and attempts to discover more about their conflicts and this runs throughout, this seeking out, this wanting to know. You can sense the distance she felt towards her parents in her descriptions of conversations and encounters with them in the book and her search for clarity reads like curiosity but also yearning.
Not having stability at home leads Brown to take different paths away from her family in a bid to find where she belongs. She ends up in San Francisco and her time here makes for interesting reading: a first hand account of joining a movement and how it operates. She is at the forefront of an organisation designed to change attitudes towards women and their roles. At this point, I felt like she had found a place but that it wasn’t always one of nurture and growth.
This is a good well-written memoir which relays Brown’s feelings about her upbringing and its shortfalls. It’s not a recount that leads you into despair or destitution but is rather a discussion, a musing, on a life that has worked out well. But what is clear is this is caused by the author’s resilience first and foremost, taking a route because she had to rather than choosing to.
Rachel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery where I was privileged to read it as an ARC.
Scuffed Granny 