I had a feeling this was going to be a grim book, based on the premise that the daughter of an addict grows up to become one herself. An author I love and an author I don't both gave it great praise in the blurbs. But I dove in, and I have finished it with nagging doubt as to the veracity and believability of the story.
Part of it is the lack of structure. There isn't even an attempt at structure, basically, no parallel story arcs, no chronology. The children of addicts tend to behave as small, feral adults in the first place, so factor that in with her unsupervised freedom running round the roughest parts of Brooklyn and a tendency to overdramatic, harsh language and you have, well, sort of a mess.
But I could follow the story, I could distinguish which boyfriend was which (she seems to define her life with her mother in terms of her mother's men). I understood the basic gist of it, that she got into Fordham and decided to become an investment banker. I don't understand if she was successful at doing that, or if her addictions derailed her. Maybe once she cut her mother out of her life, she no longer cared, I am not sure.
I am not sure of anything in this book.
There is a tendency on the part of an addict, once that addict has figured out what a distasteful person she has become, to make sure that the people around her know that the reason she's this way is her background, and to paint her family in as horrifying a fashion as she can. Look where I came from, the addict shouts, can you blame me, see how awful it was, what else could I have become. And I have no doubt that her mother's coke addiction was horrible. But I couldn't get a sense of the mother, not even get a sense of what the woman looked like, other than that she was Irish. Sometimes she was fleshy, sometimes thin, she had sparse hair, she had perfect hair, she was beautiful, she was frightening, she was slovenly, she was groomed, she was... essentially a random pile of attributes that didn't add up to a real person.
So here's what I've assembled: Her mother had a raging coke addiction, and an abusive boyfriend for the first three years of the story. But she always worked, always kept her daughter clean, combed, clothed, fed and sheltered. She prowled the playground to protect her girl, she charged over to confront a scary neighbor woman who had neglected to keep her daughter safe during a visit. She put one of her daughter's rapists in the hospital. I couldn't understand the other abuse, which seemed to be ongoing with one of the boyfriends. It also seemed to have resulted in far too many toys and outfits, meaning she was lured into prostituting herself at a horribly early age. But as quickly and harshly as she announces any other truth, she doesn't seem to want to say this one out loud, cloaking it in memory loss and indirectness that seems to plead for mercy from the reader.
She is a victim as a child, and she stays there as a young adult. Because, the truth is, this girl never really left her mother. Unlike Jeanette Walls in Glass Castle, Felicia Sullivan does not grow up to become the author of her own liberation. During the scene that was supposed to make clear to me just how awful and filthy her mother was, all I could think was "WHY ARE YOU THERE?" I couldn't understand what she was doing in that filthy apartment, or why her stepfather had stayed so long. Three adults lived in that apartment, not one. Three adults who could have cleaned house, paid rent, etc. But all she and Gus do is wail and moan as they clean up, wailing over their abandonment. Her relationship with her stepdad is mostly composed of the two of them sitting around on holidays working themselves into outrage over how badly her mother treated them. They speak of her with no love at all, but all they ever do is speak of her.
I guess victims love their victimhood. It's such a great place to put the blame. Yes, she became her mother, but in more ways than addiction. The author paints herself as competitive, manipulative, histrionic, narcissistic and selfish. Wow. I mean, yes, this is terribly honest on her part, but I would have liked the book more if I could have liked her more. The trouble is, I'm not sure the author did this on purpose. She demonstrates remarkably little ability to analyze and own her own faults, especially when examining her failed relationship with Ben. She doesn't seem to understand why he ended their relationship, even though she burst out of cabs to score drugs? She just maligns him and makes fun of whoever he is with when she runs into him.
Many people complimented the writing of this book, and while Sullivan is a talented writer, it's a little overdone. While confronting the misdeeds of others, her language is blunt and accusatory, somewhat melodramatic. How many boys actually threw boxes of Brillo pads at her in calculus? (apparently several, at least). Why is her mother's skirt held together with a bizarre armature of gold thread and safety pins? I mean, come on. It's so...mythologizing, demonizing. All the high drama and accusation is numbing, but when it's leavened with something else like the campus tag-game scene or the "Before COke" chapter, it feels inserted and pointless. So I don't agree that the writing is all that terrific.
In the end, it comes down to the fact that there is no understanding, forgiveness or growth in this book. She conveniently removes her mother's excuse for being a mess by having an aunt refute claims of a violent childhood, then conveniently removes all traces of her mother's family, so no histories can be verified. And if her addiction is understandable, and needs to be forgivable, then you'd think she'd have finally understood that her mother, too, was an addict. If Sullivan deserved to be forgiven for her addiction, then so did her mother. But she never is.
I had the same trouble with this book that I did with The Summer of Ordinary Ways by Nicole Helget. I had trouble believing that every adult was sick in the head, that every interaction was charged with pain, that every friend was insane, that no one was kind, that all boys were predatory, all men were abusive, and every neighbor and teacher didn't care. I had trouble believing in a childhood that held not one moment of content, safety or laughter other than in the "Before Coke" chapter. I stopped believing it.
It's been said that the addict's first addiction is to lying. And this author acknowledges that being raised by a pathological liar has made it difficult to tell the truth, because it's clouded her ability to perceive the truth. I will accept, at least, that the Felicia Sullivan told her own truth, and leave it at that.
