Nightshade Mother - by Gwyneth Lewis (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A striking memoir that travels through a traumatic childhood with an abusive mother."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A striking memoir that travels through a traumatic childhood with an abusive mother.

In this extraordinary memoir, Gwyneth Lewis, the inaugural National Poet of Wales, recounts her toxic upbringing at the hands of her controlling, coercive mother. It is a book that Gwyneth has been preparing to write all her life, in diaries that she's kept since childhood. In these journals, she interrogates the emotionally abusive mother/daughter relationship, in great pain but with determination to find a way through.

The result is a book that Gwyneth co-writes with her younger self, an unexpected and life-saving dialogue through time. Metaphors of haunting intensity help her confront what happened to her; quotations from art and literature help to guide and steady her. Nightshade Mother is a book about the power of art and language and, ultimately, about homecoming after a lifetime of exile from herself. It is a profoundly moving and beautiful work; questing, forgiving, and loving in its approach.

Review Quotes

"Here is a courageous author examining the painful childhood wounds and suffering caused from dysfunctional parenting, particularly with her mother and in so doing is seeking to reclaim every element of herself. . . . Nightshade Mother is written with eloquence and mettle."-- "Nation.Cymru"

"Parents can shadow their children for a very long time. This compelling memoir, daring to voice its own truth, proves it can be done. Lewis is able to disentangle herself from her parents, banish mental illness and live - if not quite in the light, then on her own foundations. As she says, in a poem about her father - and, readers, believe it: 'Despair can change.'"-- "The Spectator"

"...what is clear to us is that Lewis has realised the importance of her voice, and of her own perspective. As an accomplished writer and Wales' first National Poet, it is evident that Lewis' voice has found great significance in the world already. With this memoir, she is able to share her perspective on her own upbringing matters, not only for her own peace of mind, but also to help all those with similar experiences."-- "The Oxford Student"

"Nid oes yma faddau hawdd na chatharis braf, ond mae yma ddatgelu gwirioneddau pwysig am natur - a pheryglon - cariad a theulu, sydd yn ysgwyd y darllenydd i'r carn."

"Here is no easy forgiveness or pleasant catharsis, but the revelation of important truths about the nature - and dangers - of love and family, which shakes the reader to her core."-- "Anghard Penrhyn Jones, O'r Pedwar Gwynt"

"Lewis's persistence in naming, taming and understanding her mother's worst features makes Nightshade Mother an original and valuable exploration of a tragically mismatched mother and daughter."-- "Terri Apter, TLS"

"How do we flourish when our early nurture is also an experience of profound harm? Compelling, radical and moving, Gwyneth Lewis's extraordinary memoir is a revelatory journey back to the self she was never allowed to be. Documenting growing up speaking Welsh in the cultural heartlands of Welsh language renaissance, she finds in that Eden also a place of torture. Daughter of a 'nightshade mother', whose complex care unwittingly made open prisons of her childhood and adolescence, Gwyneth Lewis writes her way back to freedom and sanity through engagement with places of love and joy following a path that will resonate with, and inspire, many of us."-- "Alice Hiller"

"This book was dangerous to write and is troubling to read. In courageously undertaking to chronicle the severe damage done to her gifted mind by early and prolonged emotional abuse Gwyneth Lewis risked psychological collapse. But while refusing to settle for a consoling narrative of complete recovery she succeeds in negotiating a liberating truce with her deeply troubled past. And so this remarkable volume ends in cautious optimism with the rebirth of a person and of a writer."-- "M Wynn Thomas"

"This is an astonishing memoir. It is remarkable, the combination of unrelenting clarity and straightforwardness, and the subtlety of all the insidious and insistent terror (and rage) described. The book seems to me a triumph of tone and poise amidst so much disarray and confusion. It floats free of the by now all too familiar Sanity, Madness and the Family accounts of devastated childhoods. It's utterly free of sentimentality and special pleading - and shows us something partly explained by plain and lucid and understatedly poetic description. It seems to me extraordinary that Gwyneth Lewis is more than able to write this unique version of the growth of the poet's mind. We are all failures because we fail to cure our parents; this book shows the terrible impossibility of the founding task of everyone's life."-- "Adam Phillips"

"This is an extraordinary book: an anatomy of an abusive relationship, harrowing but leavened by love, a deep belief in the power of words and the wisdom earned through decades of reflection. It is, in the end, a story of healing. Inspirational."-- "Tom Bullough"

"What sort of parenting can make an adult, decades on, feel like 'a trespasser in their own life'? In this unsparing memoir of a passionately controlling mother, who needs to keep a gifted child in her place, Gwyneth Lewis explores the nature of the damage done, the discovery of patchy but real vehicles of healing, the challenges of where and how to offer - or to postpone - forgiveness. All this is done with authority and (in the best sense) dispassion -- not chill, not absent feeling, but clarity in and about feeling. It is a moving, difficult, and, ultimately, loving record, insisting on growing beyond both collusion and resentment."-- "Rowan Williams"

About the Author

All Gwyneth Lewis ever wanted to be was a writer. Brought up Welsh-speaking in Cardiff, she studied English and spent time in America. She was Wales's first National Poet and composed the six-foot-high words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre. Her nonfiction books include Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression and Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage. She has published nine books of poetry, the latest being Sparrow Tree.