I think I failed to understand this book almost completely.
Ariel, the author and narrator, was so passive that I didn't even understand half of what was happening to her. She rarely wrote about how her situations made her feel, which made the events themselves inscrutable. I had a hard time figuring out what her reactions were based on what she wrote. For example, when her girlfriend of ten years leaves her for another woman she has been seeing, she writes: "The ruin of everything. But I felt something like happiness." So, okay, it's fine I guess? The ex and her new girlfriend get custody of Ariel's son three days a week, and "He came home miming sometimes, but otherwise he seemed to adjust." So I guess that's fine with her too? A bit later, her ex "had come when I wasn't home and taken the bed we'd shared for ten years, so I curled up on the cowboy roll I'd patched together from cushions and blankets and I closed my eyes." She's a middle-aged woman who is sleeping on the floor because her cheating ex took her bed -- but she has a cowboy roll, so I guess it's fine? The whole book is full of disasters that seem to create no problems, because Ariel has no feelings -- or at least none that she wants to share with the reader.
We do get a glimpse of how Ariel really feels when her mother burns Ariel's possessions, which have preceded her arrival in Santa Fe. She writes, "I felt something hot in my chest, just under my heart and I thought I might really lose it right then." But of course she doesn't lose her composure, and neither does she discuss the incident with her mother when she arrives in Santa Fe, only to find that her mother is no longer going to let her live in her house, as they had arranged. Instead of getting upset, she just finds a place to rent.
The reader is left to assume that years of living with a narcissistic mother have taught her not to engage, and maybe not to show her emotions to her mother. Maybe not to even have them at all? I'm not sure, and that's what was so frustrating about this book: I could figure some of out, but not all of it. There was one scene where Ariel's mother's boyfriend told Ariel that her mother was going to leave everything to him, and she responded by telling him that there was nothing to be left. This was either two people joking with each other, or a stranger displaying shocking hostility. I have no idea which! Nothing before or after that scene gives the reader enough information to know. Most of this book is like that: Ariel tells the reader what happened, and the reader is left to figure out what it must have meant to her.
Ariel holds so much of herself back from this memoir, it's like she's not even there. Helping her mother sounds like a horrible experience, but it is told with no horror. Being cheated on and left must have been so painful, but it was told with no pain. Being nearly homeless must have been scary, but it was told with no fear. Do we assume that she was hurt, or scared, or disappointed, or frustrated? I don't know.
I read memoirs to experience a different life. The best memoirs can make me feel like I was really there, having those conversations and making those discoveries myself. This book held back almost everything that makes reading a good memoir a moving experience. Not recommended.
Ariel, the author and narrator, was so passive that I didn't even understand half of what was happening to her. She rarely wrote about how her situations made her feel, which made the events themselves inscrutable. I had a hard time figuring out what her reactions were based on what she wrote. For example, when her girlfriend of ten years leaves her for another woman she has been seeing, she writes: "The ruin of everything. But I felt something like happiness." So, okay, it's fine I guess? The ex and her new girlfriend get custody of Ariel's son three days a week, and "He came home miming sometimes, but otherwise he seemed to adjust." So I guess that's fine with her too? A bit later, her ex "had come when I wasn't home and taken the bed we'd shared for ten years, so I curled up on the cowboy roll I'd patched together from cushions and blankets and I closed my eyes." She's a middle-aged woman who is sleeping on the floor because her cheating ex took her bed -- but she has a cowboy roll, so I guess it's fine? The whole book is full of disasters that seem to create no problems, because Ariel has no feelings -- or at least none that she wants to share with the reader.
We do get a glimpse of how Ariel really feels when her mother burns Ariel's possessions, which have preceded her arrival in Santa Fe. She writes, "I felt something hot in my chest, just under my heart and I thought I might really lose it right then." But of course she doesn't lose her composure, and neither does she discuss the incident with her mother when she arrives in Santa Fe, only to find that her mother is no longer going to let her live in her house, as they had arranged. Instead of getting upset, she just finds a place to rent.
The reader is left to assume that years of living with a narcissistic mother have taught her not to engage, and maybe not to show her emotions to her mother. Maybe not to even have them at all? I'm not sure, and that's what was so frustrating about this book: I could figure some of out, but not all of it. There was one scene where Ariel's mother's boyfriend told Ariel that her mother was going to leave everything to him, and she responded by telling him that there was nothing to be left. This was either two people joking with each other, or a stranger displaying shocking hostility. I have no idea which! Nothing before or after that scene gives the reader enough information to know. Most of this book is like that: Ariel tells the reader what happened, and the reader is left to figure out what it must have meant to her.
Ariel holds so much of herself back from this memoir, it's like she's not even there. Helping her mother sounds like a horrible experience, but it is told with no horror. Being cheated on and left must have been so painful, but it was told with no pain. Being nearly homeless must have been scary, but it was told with no fear. Do we assume that she was hurt, or scared, or disappointed, or frustrated? I don't know.
I read memoirs to experience a different life. The best memoirs can make me feel like I was really there, having those conversations and making those discoveries myself. This book held back almost everything that makes reading a good memoir a moving experience. Not recommended.
