Grief…
I don’t often read reviews.
Not just for my own books but for anyone’s really. It’s a personal foible.
But for some unknown reason the other day, I had a look to see what folk might have to say about Passage, the book that was my first foray into writing contemporary fiction.
One reviewer commented that “She (Annie) just seems to be adrift from beginning to end… Throughout the book, readers truly want to see Annie find a love again to fill the ache in her heart. Or at least peace within her soul…”
I thought to myself that this reviewer doesn’t know grief, or if she/he does, then she/he should realise that grief affects everyone in different ways. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. For some, it can dominate their whole life.
In Annie’s case, we meet her in her first year of loss after loved husband Alex’s violent and sudden death. To assume that she will be bouncing through that year, well-sorted in her thinking processes, and looking for a new love is unlikely. And frankly unreasonable given the trauma that she experienced. If she had sought ‘love’ in that first year, what sort of person would that have made her and what would it have said about the fact that Alex was supposedly her soul mate? To me as a reader, she would have been a shallow and hypocritical character and the narrative would have been about titillation, not a true love story.
I based Annie’s passage from the depths of grief on research from grief counsellors and clinical psychologists. I also based it on firsthand information from those who have lost life-partners. How they coped or didn’t cope was hugely moving to me. And very revealing. In addition, and although this is slightly different, I based it on the kind of grief I experienced when I lost my parents. To a point, I also placed myself in Annie’s shoes, wondering what I would feel if I lost my husband, my soul mate, in a catastrophic accident.
It’s important to realise that Annie’s story isn’t a journey to find love again. It’s a journey of self-discovery, of realising that she can cope and that there is light at the end of a long and very dark tunnel. Maybe Annie doesn’t want to find love again. Alex was the love of her life, why would she want to replace him? My mother never ever wanted to replace my Dad and I would never want to replace my husband. What Annie is learning is emotional resilience, and it often takes a catastrophe to enable that.
All reviewers are subjective, speaking from the prism of their own experience. And against my better judgement, I think in this case the reviewer may not have thought outside the square. Passage is not a book about clichéd ‘love again’. This is a book about struggling to find oneself after love is lost.
It’s also a story about only one of the many types of grief. It was my intention when writing it to show exactly that.
And just cheekily, the much loved and respected Irish writer, Cathy Kelly, obviously found the true depths of the story when she gave it the seal of approval – ‘“What a beautiful book about loss and grief and learning to live again…a wonderfully moving novel.”
Cheers…
I agree Prue, if I had lost my beloved I would be trying to get through life the best I could, I am not sure why the reviewer thinks we are expecting Annie to find love. Annie was bereft as any of us would be, I am sure I would be adrift as I try to navigate my life without my husband. I thought that you got it spot on It is a beautiful book, I really loved it.
Thank you, Libby and I agree. I would be bereft and finding my way with great difficulty, I’m sure.
This is an interesting subject and I admit I am torn. On the one hand, I can’t imagine being married to anyone else and think it unlikely that I would seek that. On the other hand, I know people who have found love again, after crushing loss, and I have witnessed that joy. In fact, my uncle married for the first time in his late 70s to a woman who had been married twice before and dealt with terrible circumstances and grief. Her ability to love and her willingness to be vulnerable again after those experiences led to my uncle’s 16-year marriage to the love of his life. When your reader says she wanted Annie to find love again, it’s not unreasonable (remember, no matter how many truths in any novel it is still a work of fiction and part of the reason many of us read fiction is for the kind of closure (whatever that means to each person) that rarely comes in real life. It isn’t necessarily a criticism of the book. The contrary, I rather think. Because to want Annie to be happy is to care about her and to believe her deserving of that. You, as the author, have a truth. So does your reader. And although you created Annie, once you released her she took on a life of her own. And everyone who has met her (or who will meet her in the future) will respond to her differently and see her through their own filters. This is a good thing.
Hi Rebecca, I agree to a point with what you say which is why I said that every reviewer (and indeed every reader) reads a book and judges it through the prism of their own experience. I don’t mind she/he saying they wished that Annie could find happiness in the end. That’s what we all want for a character we have invested ourselves in. But it was the assumption that her happiness could only come if she found love again. That’s not how I saw Annie when I created her. The thing is that I was never sure, and am still unsure, if Annie’s story might continue. Never say never…
I do agree that thinking another love would be the only path to happiness is a very narrow view. And for me, the book ended in a way that was true to the Annie I got to know.
Two years on, I still can’t imagine wanting to find someone else. Some days it hits harder than others. This year our wedding anniversary knocked me for six. Still finding my way forward. Your book was perfect.
Oh Caro. My heart breaks for you. It’s when it creeps up, isn’t it…
Although one shouldn’t compare the loss of a partner with the loss of a much loved animal, I felt exactly the same way when I lost my beautiful Timi, my curly haired Jack Russell who looked like a little lamb. He was white with black mascara round his eyes! I had him for nearly sixteen years and after he had gone, I often felt and almost saw his presence. There was no way I could have gone out and got another dog at that time. It would have been disloyal, it seemed to me, and have betrayed my love for that little dog and his for me. I waited over three years before I was ready to have another dog and I am glad to say that Bella is a completely different character, much more assertive and less biddable. I love her, of course, but will always have loving memories in my heart for Timi.
Grief is grief, Shirley. Whether for much loved pet, partner, child, job, home, way of life, even self. We mourn what we love and what we have lost.
And for those whose love is soul-deep for whatever they have lost, it is possible they may grieve forever. It’s well-documented. That’s what I tried to portray in Annie’s case. It wasn’t a romance unless we see it as Annie’s and Alex immense love for each other, even in death.