Tag: Mothers

Night, Ma – book review

Night, Ma, by Elizabeth Knox

I had bought Night, Ma and left it on my table for a while, wondering if I really wanted to go there when there were nice, frivolous, bouncy books still on the pile to read. I finally opened it with trepidation, still bewildered as to why writers turn themselves inside out to offer up all their innermost vulnerabilities. I’m a late-comer to the intimacy of memoir. Now of course I recognise it is this very vulnerability that makes the genre so compelling. Human nature recognises and engages with truth, and truth is at the heart of every great story. Perhaps we connect with memoir in a more primal way than fiction and feel every scene, every touch, with far more intensity because it’s not just made up out of some frivolous author’s head, or some AI bot. Here’s the truth, as one woman sees it. Night, Ma comes alive through Elizabeth Knox’s almost subcutaneous observations of the people closest to her. And that’s fascinating.

Continue reading “Night, Ma – book review”

Grand – book review

Grand, becoming my mother’s daughter by Noelle McCarthy

Memoirs are so deeply personal they make me terrified. I can’t imagine ever wanting to write one. Now I know so much about Noelle McCarthy she’s no longer just that engaging, Irish voice on the radio. We’re so much closer than that. Things got personal very fast. I feel I’ve seen her naked. Why do people do this?

Saying that, it’s terrific for a reader. Who doesn’t want to wander through someone else’s thoughts for a while? Especially someone this smart and interesting. We can access their memories, become a voyeur of their lives. Judge them. A memoir is very different to a story (fact or fiction) told about someone else; psychologically a totally different thing. Noelle (usually I refer to an author by surname, but we’re intimates) tells us how she sees herself, with access to all that interior landscape. OK, so the book is ostensibly about her mother, but it’s about her. Noelle McCarthy. What a great woman.

Continue reading “Grand – book review”