HAMNET by Maggie O'Farrell

Shakespeare, how he is just always there. In so many many parts of our culture, our language, our stories. Amazing with his always relevant story telling. But what of his own story behind the plays,  his family  life, what do we really know. Well, as it transpires, not a great deal. And even less about his wife Anne, and his family of three children. As usual in the patriarchy we have lived in for centuries, the lives of women, wives, mothers, daughters really don't feature at all. So, here is a story about Shakespeare's family - his wife Anne, his three children of which very little is known about, and so this wonderful author has taken the few facts and woven a stunning story. 

William Shakespeare is never actually mentioned by name in this story, the character that is him does not even have a name. In fact he is the only character without a name. Agnes is the name of the wife in this story. She has an interesting back story, a woman a little unusual, in less enligjust htened times maybe even accused of being a witch. She has extraordinary knowledge of the medicinal qualities of plants, which she uses to good effect in the village she and her husband live in, with their three children, next to his parents. Until two of her children get ill, and then one dies, their son Hamnet. Whom Shakespeare names his play Hamlet after. The sickness and death of children in these times is not at all unusual, hygiene being what it was, disease being rife, including the plague. There is an intriguing chapter about how the plague comes to the village, to Hamnet and his sister. How a virus can travel so insidiously and anonymously. 

The story is so beautifully written, it makes you feel for Agnes, her children, the loss of a child. 16th century English village life is brought to life, made real. The relationships within the family are so relatable, just like our relationships as couples, as a family are today. The world goes around, the centuries pass, but the basics stay the same. Despite the tragedy central to the story, this is is a story written with love and joy, by an author who cares deeply for her characters and what they are saying. It is perfect. 



SINGULARITY by Charlotte Grimshaw

 I love Charlotte Grimshaw's writing. With the one exception - her last novel Mazarine which I just did not really get or enjoy. It was reassuring to read other reader reviews to see I wasn't the only one. Having just finished her outstanding and intimate memoir The Mirror Book,  I just had to go back to reading some of her earlier books. Again. A lot of her earlier writings feature in this memoir, and I do now have more understanding of her purpose in writing Mazarine. 

This collection of short stories was published in 2009, which is probably when I read it. She is an observer of people, of relationships, of the landscape and physical world around her. She writes lovingly and beautifully of the places she lives in, visits, holidays in. Even walking around her city, she writes evocative pictures of her settings with writing that draws you in, makes you part of the story, makes you feel what the story is. Her stories are about ordinary people, doing ordinary things, yet somehow she makes them important, special, meaningful. I read this collection again because she refers to many of the stories in her memoir, and how she came to write them. Some of them are based on things that happened to her in childhood, most notably a walk that three children under the age of 10 are sent on that almost ends in tragedy. The real walk and the fictional walk are almost identical in their telling, which is very chilling. After reading the memoir, many of the threads in her short stories make more sense, there is much greater depth to the stories because you now know where they come from. 

I really hope she goes back to writing like this, as she also has in her short story selection Opportunity, and in her earlier novels. I will go back to being a big fan. 



THE MOTHER WOUND by Amani Haydar


Amani Haydar's mother would be so proud of what her daughter has done in her 32 years of life. A dutiful and loving daughter, a mother herself, wife, lawyer, artist, women's rights advocate, and most importantly advocate for her own mother and siblings, after her father brutally and maniacally stabbed her mother to death. Because her mother wanted to leave, she wanted to have her own life, she wanted to continue the marvellous work she herself was doing for her Lebanese community. But no, her conservative Lebanese husband, Amani's father,  did not want this. 

This is a shockingly honest, raw and brilliant memoir of how this tragedy came to happen, and how Amani came to terms with it - her own father killing her mother. I can't even begin to imagine the horror of having to deal with such a terrible event. This is such an intimate account of a family life told first through the eyes of a child, on whom it slowly dawns that her family isn't quite as 'normal' as the other Lebanese families in their neighbourhood. There is an added curve ball in this mix - predominantly white Sydney/Australia loves a good ethnic/cultural minority violence story, and this one ticks all the boxes. How Amani comes out the other side of all this I really don't know. Her marriage is probably stronger than before, she is a loving and adoring  mother of two small children, she is no longer a practising lawyer, but has found a perfect outlet for her intelligence, her courage and tenacity in her involvement with victims of what she is now calling domestic abuse rather than domestic violence.

Uplifting, honest, cathartic, a remarkable insight into one family's tragedy and a privilege to be allowed in. You can follow Amani on Instagram and see her beautiful art which has helped her in her grief, her coming to terms with what has happened, and her admirable strength. What a woman. 




 

THE MIRROR BOOK by Charlotte Grimshaw

To thine own self be true - the underlying message I got from this stunning memoir by NZ author Charlotte Grimshaw. Well known and highly regarded in her own right, she happens to be the daughter of 'famous in New Zealand' author CK Stead. A polarising individual, he is an outstanding writer, recipient of numerous awards and prizes, a professor, poet laureate and so it goes on. Charlotte's whole life and that of her two siblings, revolved completely and utterly around the orbit that was their father. Their mother, Kaye, came from a very humble, and as is revealed in this memoir, emotionally damaged childhood. The way Charlotte tells her story, Dad was in charge, and everyone had to bow down to his wants, needs, moods, womanising ways, mercurial tendencies. What a truly difficult and unpleasant man. Middle child Charlotte would seem to be the only one of the three children with the balls, the brains, and tenacity to challenge her father,  by default her mother, and jointly her parents' parenting of the three children. 

What a story she tells. With young children herself, her own life begins to implode when her marriage is threatened by her husband's affair. Rolling away underneath this impending disaster, with Charlotte trying to figure out why and how this has all happened, she realises that her life is one of complete denial and suppression of much of everything to date. It being a long and difficult process for Charlotte to find her true self, to have the courage to tell her story and in the process confront her parents and siblings with much discomfort, is a total understatement. And now she is telling her story, in her way, to redress and set the record, her own record straight so she can live freely. And there have certainly been some challenges. 

Many times her childhood and family life were magical, fun, loving and connected. She has huge praise for much of the life her parents gave her. But within this tight family unit of exceptionally high standards there are some alarming instances of neglect, danger, survival, assault, bewilderment, denial, lack of emotional and physical care. Her loss of self comes from her parents' denial that any of the things she thinks/believes/knows happen to  her, did not in fact happen as she remembers them.  If they even happened at all. We all know the feeling when you share stories of events from childhood with your siblings and everyone remembers the same event in a different way, or something happens to your brother or sister, and you have no recollection of it. You start to doubt if what you remember is the real memory or not. 

This is Charlotte taking a huge breath and opening up the shutters of her family life and in her own life, making sense of it, warts and all. It is marvellous, horribly honest, confronting. Most people would wait until their parents were no longer alive to open up, not this person! It is at times uncomfortable reading, but by crikey it is riveting and courageous writing. And my goodness can she write. She makes much reference in her memoir to previous writings, some of which I have read. Including Mazarine. I didn't get it when I read it and still don't get it! I have reread her short story collection Singularity, many of which have references from her childhood told in this memoir. They take on a whole new meaning when you know the real back story. 

Outstanding writing and reading. 


 


THE MAD WOMEN'S BALL by Victoria Mas

 

This book was a birthday present from the bookshop I work in, bought without me knowing! What book do you give the girl who reads all the time and reads such a wide range of genres? It was a challenge I believe... and what a choice. I loved this, so neat to find out what others think you would like to read. 

The background to this novel translated from French is treatment of the mentally unwell, not in the present, but in 1885, in Paris. In recent years mental health awareness, perceptions and treatment of have totally come out of the closet, and what a good thing that is. Way back in 1885, such health issues were never discussed, you just got chucked into a 'medical' facility where you had no rights, no choices, totally under the control of the medical people who ran the place. And what better way to treat an unwanted wife, a rebellious  daughter, a mother with what would now be diagnosed as post natal depression, an abused woman who finally can't take any more and throws her awful husband off a bridge. Lock them away. Simple. 

The Salpêtrière asylum is where women would be incarcerated until deemed recovered. If ever. Once a year there is a ball - the mad women's ball. With the cream of Pais society, the nosy and curious vying for tickets, this is the event of the year. A ridiculous premise really, putting crazy people on public display,  the women are in the thrall of dressing up, altering beautiful dresses to fit, playing dress ups, in an atmosphere of hope for the women, and voyeurism for everyone else. 

Geneviève is a head nurse at the asylum. Brought to the nursing profession following the death of her younger sister many years before, she has been at the asylum for some 20 years, a true part of the furniture, but also trusted and valued by the male medical staff. She is kind, concerned for the women in her care, but she is very repressed emotionally, buttoned up and not a happy woman. Into the asylum comes 17 year old Eugénie, daughter of one of Paris' society families. She has ideas and dreams way beyond her family's rigid rules, and dangerously can see and hear spirits of people who have died. Once incarcerated, she comes under the care of Geneviève. Life changes dramatically for both women when Eugénie sees and hears Geneviève's long dead sister Blandine. The tension and question of the story is who is mad and who isn't, what is going to happen on the night of the ball, who will stay and who will go. 

Vivid writing, beautifully capturing Paris of the 1880s, striving to be a modern city, but with these deeply barbaric institutions and ways of doing things.  The characters are so well drawn and develop  It is also about the power of hope, the power of connections, taking a chance, and just believing. Very good story. And I understand that Amazon is making a movie. Can't wait.