If this sounds harrowing, it is, and is at times difficult to persist with. However, it is a deeply compassionate and a testament to the bond which, despite everything, held this daughter and her mother together.
The story is told through the daughter's extensive exploration of her mother's childhood, by means of diaries, tapes, letters and photographs, and also refers to a short film made of the family. Interviews with family members also play a major role in this investigation.
What emerges is a fascinating picture of dysfunction. A bohemian couple, married in the 1950s, the parents have seven children in a 10-year period.
There is little money. The author's mother, second in line, is strikingly beautiful, but withdrawn and passive. Her beauty is used to aid family finance; she becomes a child model.
Tragedy hits the family, a child dies accidentally, but the grief and loss experienced is never talked about. An abused boy is brought into the family, with a suggestion this is an attempt to replace what has been lost.
There are happy times, and family holidays, huge meals in the holiday house where up to 30 family members and hangers on get together in the sunshine.
And there is, almost inevitably, evidence of a much darker secret.
I found it extraordinary there is no mention anywhere of the Occupation and the likely struggles of the parents who lived through that. But this again, I am guessing, was part of the family silence.
If you are interested in the way family members play out their history you will find this book as riveting as I did, despite my need at times to put it down.
- Margaret Bannister is a retired Dunedin psychotherapist and science teacher.
