First of all I totally accept that this is the author’s story of a personal journey and taken that way, by all means, read it.
But as a potential for dealing with one’s own grief over the loss of a loved one, or a story of grieving for two lost siblings, it just does not travel and you will find no help here.
In many ways, if it is a personal purge of whatever description, it was better either left unpublished (we can all keep journals to let out our inner demons, or have unrecorded conversations with intimates), but to say it offers anything to others in their grieving process is grossly misleading.
At worst, one could say that the author has used an horrendous personal loss to title and promote a memoir that does not gel with the story delivered. Again – the memoir is fine, but the title is just wrong. “The Girls” refers to the sisters who died, but their presence is barely felt. Even her editor asked the author about the lack of presence of the dead girls in the memoir, and she justifies their absence from the book by saying that it is a metaphor for her grieving process : avoidance. And she knows about avoidance as she is a psychology student, a fact of which we are constantly reminded.
There is drug abuse, sex work, disobedience, self-harm, parental disobedience by the surviving eldest sister, the author. She favours the bereaved father, patronises and belittles the mother. Are all of these behaviours a new pattern following the death of her sisters, or were certain elements pre-existing? We do not know. This is the eldest child in a family of three girls, aged 17 at the death of her sisters aged 14 and 9.
Despite the author’s claim in the note at the end of the book about it being ‘a family story,’ I find this just not to track. She includes some unedited un-reflected upon extracts from her father’s post crash diary, and the accounts of her mother, despite her repeated claim to try and understand her, glares as patronising and belittling, especially the recounting of her mother’s Facebook posts during their stay in New York together while the author was at a writer’s workshop (god knows how she won this), and she told her mother to ‘stay away’ between the hours of 6am and 12 noon, while she wrote, or had her ‘quiet’ time.
The lack of empathy for other is gobsmacking – even for a twenty-something female. Her patronising attitude to her mother is mind-blowing: this is a psychology student? The whole language of the book (once again in reference to the title) makes one reach for the old psychology texts that talk about narcissism and birth order, just for starters. How can she feel suffocated by a mother to whom she pays no attention!
The most glaring behaviour that appears for this reader, apart from the drugs, sex-work (a new experience), self-harm etc., is the gob-smacking lack of empathy that she demonstrates for her loved ones, and the admiration that she has for the affluent couple and their poor son with whom she cohabits, does drugs and yes, more sex. Ho hum! Nobody is shocked by sex work anymore – only when it is through enforced labour or outside the will of the worker. This book failed to make a clear connection between engaging in it, and its role in her grieving process. In that sense it aligns with anything else consumption of drugs, or any other maladaptive behaviour designed to screen the participant from reality. It could just as easily have been shoplifting, compulsive shopping, gambling etc. The languorous description of the sexual encounters especially with the affluent couple with the young son, is just superfluous, and the description of Am’s choices as demonstrative of ‘adult choices’ is laughable. And these people she holds as role models?
With regard to her poor mum, she says she ‘consulted’ about talking about the intimate everyday details of their conversations while on the New York junket, but somehow found it more ‘honest’ to share these intimate details. Poor mum, she probably thought this daughter knew what she was doing. I could see no point in sharing these intimate conversations between herself and her mother – the perception of this reader is that is just another example of belittling her poor parent.
A memoir it may be, but in terms of approaching grief over the loss of two loved siblings – it is not believable. As a memoir about a part of her life with an incidental reference to the loss of two younger siblings – it might play. The title is just plain misleading if it is referring to the the two dead girls – it should be something that refers to the surviving girl – maybe then I could credit it.
In the end, and yes, I stayed to the end, living in hope. But in the end, there is no insight, no enlightenment. And most alarmingly, no insight into the authors relationship with her dead sisters.
Lots of talk about her reaction to all the memories on FB (from other people), they are laboriously recounted word for word – she looks at photos shared by other people, read stories about them from other people. She eats, and in the final words of the book ‘begins to remember.’
It just feels too late.
In terms of writing, the style is clunky and inelegant, especially when ‘listing’ the photos of her with her sisters. It feels like verbal padding, without reflection, and a wasted opportunity for more depth and insight into her relationship with them
In the afterword, she says the artist cannot always control the art, and she ended up telling a family story, but this is not the perception when reading the book: it is all about her.
In terms of being an artist, creativity is about making art – art is about knowing what to keep, and what to discard.
She then goes on to talk about her ‘achievements’, travelling to over 30 countries (who cares, especially when you go so underprepared as in the case of the India junket – more drugs, more sex – ho hum!) She tells us that she did start the Wollongong writers’ festival – definitely a fine achievement.
She says writing helps to expel the ugliness, and this is fine – but not necessarily a good reason to publish that material. Some conversations are best left with the therapist, or find a good friend to vent to. The material here is worthy of a book – but I just feel it needed a better vehicle than this to do it justice.
A quote from the author Sydney Morning Herald August 25, 2019
She hopes sharing her experiences will help others feel more comfortable to talk honestly about grief, sexuality and family relationships.
“I feel like everybody is just walking around with these private traumas, confusions or questions or things they think they can’t say out loud,” Higgins said, “and its like once you find space, once you can articulate things that you either haven’t been able to say, or even admit to yourself, once you say them out loud I feel like they become less intense. Something shifts.”
I’m a big fan of sharing these traumas (hey, I studied psychology too – plus I have lived a bit) but I can’t help wondering what this author would have produced if her family had never had this terrible experience. A quick search shows the author has quit her psychology studies to pursue her love of boxing, and now has a business running creative writing classes.
Fortunately I purchased this as an audiobook, so I am able to return it, and I will be doing this post-haste.
What do you think?