Bernadine Evaristo (2013) Mr Loverman. London, Hamish Hamilton. 978-0-241-14578-4

 

This book is about a loveable rogue, Barrington Walker. One of the Windrush generation having moved to London from Antigua in the 1950’s. The book is about prejudice and the consequences of fear.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

Barrington Walker is in his 70’s and has done well through business, although unwilling to identify quite how well, he supports many of his extended family, both in the UK and back in Antigua. He is married with two daughters but has been in an intimate relationship with his childhood friend, Morris, since they were teenagers.

Most of the book is about his coming out – to family and friends – and the fear and prejudice surrounding it. It does however, talk about domestic abuse in the generation above Barry. His wife’s father was physically abusive to her mother, but her mother was unwilling to leave, feeling it was something she had to “put up with”. His own grandmother was physically abused by her second husband and, again, at the time it was felt that women should accept that was how it was. This reflects Barry’s feelings about hiding his homosexuality, his relationship with Morris and his experiences cruising.

In one scene, Barry’s wife, Carmel, slaps him across the face, and there is a suggestion that this isn’t the first time this has happened. He also seems to accept this as his due.

Elif Shafak (2013) Honour. London, Penguin. 978-0-241-97294-6

This is a story of a Turkish-Kurdish family living in London and how the family’s sense of Honour is held by the “appropriate” behaviour of the women while the men live how they wish with approbation.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

This book is about violence against women and girls in an intimate familial setting in the name of honour. Set in the 1970’s, the main characters are twin girls, born in a village in Kurdistan. From a young age they are subjected to honour abuse as one is kidnapped in retaliation for an issue with the marriage of her older sister and , having been taken by men, is punished herself for then being tainted by any sexual abuse that may have been foisted on her. Her Turkish suitor marries her twin instead and they leave for Istanbul and then on to London.

Here, again, the men are free to have affairs, visit prostitutes, gamble, and the father abandons his wife and by now three children, to live with a lap dancer who he pursues to the Gulf when she leaves him for a wealthier suitor. But it is when the mother develops a platonic relationship with a kind, older man she meets accidentally, that the family’s honour is brought into question. The eldest son, despite still being at school, is now the head of the family and, ripe for radicalisation, is pressured to take action when the mother’s indiscretion is discovered.  His action has tragic consequences, and he ends up serving a long sentence in prison.

While there is a sense of growing, learning and redemption in the characters at the end, with one twin dying before her time, one twin murdered and the father dying by suicide, it is a tragic story.

 

Nancy Werlin (2006) The Rules of Survival. New York, Speak. 978-0-14-241071-4

 

The narrator is the eldest of three children who live with their neglectful and abusive mother. The story follows her increasingly erratic behaviour as she pursues a man who has rejected her until a tragedy occurs.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

This is an interesting book as it is the first one which portrays an abusive female in a heterosexual relationship. It is interesting to see portrayed how a character – the woman in this case – who is less physically strong, uses violence through the manipulation of other people as well as being mentally and emotionally abusive.

The novel is primarily the story of the three children and how they develop techniques to survive their mother’s neglect and abuse. The eldest child, the narrator, involves a man he meets at the counter of a store. He doesn’t realise it at the time but he is connecting with an adult who has survived childhood abuse. Unwittingly he brings the man into their family and into an intimate relationship with the mother. It is when he experiences her manipulation that he ends the relationship, sparking an escalating pattern of violence, usually at the hands of her new lovers, and abuse towards him. It escalates to a tragic conclusion and he is then drawn in to gather together a group of people to support the children.

This is a young adult novel, with the main character, Matthew Walsh, writing a letter to his youngest sibling, Emmy, who would have been too young to remember the details.

 

Awards:

• Finalist National Book Award for Young People’s Literature 2006
• Finalist Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2006
• American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults 2007

Nicholas Sparks (2010) Safe Haven. London, Little Brown. 978-0-7515-4852-5

 

The story is one of a woman having fled an abusive marriage and establishing a new life with a new identity, all the time knowing that her husband might track her down.
 
[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert]
 
The story is set in the present, with the main character looking back and reflecting on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband and constantly looking over her shoulder for any indication that he might have caught up with her. As she gradually begins to feel safe a relationship develops with a local widower and his young children
 
The story is told from two points of view – that of the main character and that of her increasingly deranged ex-husband – until the inevitable happens and he tracks her down leading to a violent, but ultimately “happy”, ending for the main character and her new life.
 
The book has a number of stereotypes, not least that of the police detective as the husband, and the main character having been brought up in a household where she witnessed violence and abuse. The domestic abuse is extreme, both in the elements of control, the violence and the way in which the abuser tracks down his wife.
 
There is a plot twist at the end where the woman the main character portrays is revealed as the ghost her new partners dead wife, guiding her in their relationship.
 
The book was made into a film – billed as a “romantic drama fantasy thriller” starring Julianne Hough as the main character and David Lyons as the abuser. The reviews were, on the whole, negative, described as "schmaltzy, predictable, and melodramatic”. The plot twist particularly came in for a considerable amount of negative criticism.

Angie Cruz (2019) Dominicana. London, John Murray. 978-1-529-30487-9

 

    Again, the main theme of this book is not domestic abuse, but it occurs as part of the marriage between the main character and the man twice her age she is persuaded to marry at 15 to improve the chances of a better life for all the family.
 
[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert].
 
Ana comes from a poor family in what is now the Dominican Republic. The best chance for her family to have a better life comes from emigrating and moving to America. Ana attracts the eye of a Dominican who has already moved to NYC and marriage brings with it the prospect of the whole family making that move. Ana’s husband is violent towards her when he feels his authority over her is undermined or their precarious position is threatened by her actions. When, during political upheaval in Dominica, her husband returns home, Ana is left free to fall in love, make friends, and develop some financial independence. When her husband returns, she has to choose between duty and family, freedom and love.
 
The story is told to the backdrop of political events in Dominica and American intervention in those events and the murder of Malcolm X. It beautifully details the experience of immigrants in 1960’s New York and is based on the life of the author’s mother.
 
Awards:
·        Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020

Writing about Leaving

 
In my last writing workshop with my fellow first year PhD students, we discussed “the uncanny” triggered by reading Bennett and Royle’s introduction⁽¹⁾ to it as a concept and analysis of Freud’s list of things that make us feel unwholesome/unhomelike. Perfect for Halloween.
 
I began to think about whether there would or could be instances of the uncanny in the book I have started. One incident, that happened to me on the day I left my controlling and abusive marriage stood out. My book is a fictional account of domestic abuse, and particularly coercive control, and while loosely based on some of my own experiences, weaves other narratives into the story. Sometimes I write in the first person and sometimes in the third, but eventually it will all be a third person perspective. I decided I would begin to write about that day.
 
It is interesting in that I have talked (to friends, counsellors, therapists, solicitors) about many aspects of my experience, to reduce the trauma and record events for the legal record, but I have largely ignored the emotional impact of that day, simply regarding it as a day that happened, was difficult, but achieved it’s aim. But of course it was both pivotal, the ending of one thing and the starting of another, and traumatic.
 
I found as I began to write about it, that my narrative sounded like something a child – maybe of primary school age - would write. It listed events – this happened, and then this happened, and then this… I went back to edit and fill in the details but it still felt like a black-and-white outline drawing waiting to be coloured in. I was intrigued that I was finding this so hard to write about and yet, why was I so surprised? It was a highly anxious and adrenaline-filled day.
 
Finally I had a discussion with a friend who is a writer and poet, who studied the MA in Creative Writing alongside me and is a survivor herself, and sent her what I had written so far. Her insight suddenly freed me up to write creatively about it. I felt like a block had cleared.
 
I am sure it will require considerable editing as time goes by and the project develops, but I now feel this piece is on it’s way and am content that it’s where it needs to be for now. Writing as therapy; it’s uncanny.

(1) Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royale (2016) Chapter Five: The Uncanny in An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Abingdon, Taylor & Francis Group.

Roddy Doyle (1996) The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. London, Mandarin Paperbacks. 0-7493-9599-0

 

Roddy Doyle's book The Woman Who Walked Into Doors a story of domestic abuse told by of a 39-year-old woman, now an alcoholic, who is suffering from domestic violence. The book is set in a working-class suburb of Dublin where domestic violence is unacknowledged by those around, despite evidence to the contrary. 

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert]

The book takes us on a journey from the narrator's - Paula's - childhood, through first meeting the man who later abuses her, to their marriage and his increasingly violent and controlling behaviour. Although abuse is obvious throughout, the character holds back on her description of the physical violence she suffered until the last third of the book when it all comes pouring out. 

Paddy Doyle says "It's a list of some of her injuries and what he did to her. In that passage of the book, that's where the bulk of the violence takes place. The rest of the book has the sense of the threat, and it's always there. But I wasn't interested in the violence and I got it out of the way quite quickly." (1)

The narrator, Paula, pleads a number of times "Ask me" in the numerous situations where her bruises, breaks and burns are obvious to people who could have intervened - but didn't. Finally, when her husband eyes up their eldest daughter, does she find the strength to throw him out.

I thought the book was a moving portrayal of domestic violence but to me fell into so many of the stereotypes of the "type" of woman who experiences domestic abuse - working class, lack of formal education, living in poverty (although this is partly due to the abuse). Although other aspects of abuse were present (financial abuse, coercive control etc), it was the violence that was shocking and most prevelant.

I was curious to know if the book had been shocking at the time - twenty four years ago, which might somewhat explain the stereotyping. It was written after the 1993 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, but even in this century commentators would suggest that Ireland lagged behind in addressing domestic violence.

Paula McGovern in The Journal in February 2013 said "The issue of domestic violence is virtually invisible in Ireland and we lag far behind other western countries in how we deal with it in our social systems" (2) and Orla Muldoon, professor of psychology at the University of Limerick, writing in the Irish Times in March 2019 after the murder of Clodagh Hawe, said "It is often deemed inappropriate to intervene in what are seen as ‘private family matters'" (3). 

It is, however, an incredibly moving and shocking account of domestic violence - and of course, written by Roddy Doyle, it is beautifully paced and written.

(1) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/writersandcompany/man-booker-prize-winner-roddy-doyle-on-domestic-violence-writing-from-memory-and-the-lure-of-irish-culture-1.4789071

(2) https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/v-day-one-billion-rising-794059-Feb2013/

(3) https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/irish-culture-is-facilitating-the-domestic-abuse-of-women-1.3812813

The journey begins...

I have decided to keep a blog to record the progress of my research and my studies.

I'm a (very) mature student who has gone back into the academic world after 35 years out. Two and a half years ago, I was made redundant from a full-time, full-on job with an hours commute at either end of the day. I decided to take a part-time job and do something I had thought about doing for years - creative writing.

I didn't really know where to start. I knew that just buying some books or listening to podcasts wouldn't work for me. I needed (and still need) the structure of deadlines and the companionship of other people on the same journey. So I applied to do a part-time MA in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth and, having submitted my first attempts at writing creatively, I was accepted.

The last two years have been a huge joy. I have loved every minute of the workshops attended, the fellow students I worked with and befriended, and the inspiration and support of the academics at the University. I came away with a small body of poetry about family and history, a script for a short film about disabled access (which includes blowing up a building I found particularly inaccessible) and a novella about loneliness as it impacts on five people who live in close proximity.

During my two years I also performed some of my work with a Plymouth-based arts community organisation called WonderZoo; I spent a wonderful few days on a writer's retreat at the poet Charles Causeley's house in Launceston, Cornwall, and I attended a Life Writing course run by that amazing organisation, The Arvon Foundation with Cathy Rentzenbrink (Dear Reader, A Manual for Heartache, The Last Act of Love) and Marina Benjamin (Insomnia, The Middlepause, Last Days in Babylon)

It was at The Hurst (the Arvon Centre in Shropshire) that I realised I was writing about the wrong parts of my life and what I needed to do was address the elephant in the room and write about my experiences of domestic abuse. I considered developing this into my Master's dissertation but was encouraged by my tutor, Ben Smith (of Doggerland fame) to consider developing it as a PhD proposal as the potential scope was too large for a Masters.

I have always been a voracious reader and yet, when I experienced domestic abuse I didn't recognise it as such because what I had read didn't reflect my own experiences. What I want to do is to write so that people (readers at least) experiencing abusive relationships recognise them as such and maybe extricate themselves at an earlier stage. So, that is part of my research.

I am studying part-time and distance learning with the University of Bristol. The University has a well-renowned English Department where my Creative Writing supervisor - Mimi Thebo (Hospital High, Dreaming the Bear, Coyote Summer etc) - "lives" and houses the excellent Centre for Gender and Violence Research where my second supervisor - Emma Williamson - is a Reader. I feel very blessed to have both of them.

Part-time means that this will be a long journey. I plan to finish in six years, but my registration with the University allows me a little longer than this. I plan to write a blog regularly but without fixed intervals. I'd rather write when I have something to say. I do plan to include my reading on the subjects I'm researching and document my journey as a mature student. I hope you will join me and enjoy.

This blog may well extend over the next six or seven years of my life.