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.