Book Review: Where I End

Where I End, by Sophie White, is set on a small island off the coast of Ireland. Fewer than two hundred people live on this remote outcrop. They speak a dialect of Gaeilge that is understood by few incomers. The locals harbour deep seated superstitions that result in some disturbing practices.

The island has a grey beach at one end and sheer cliffs at the other. In between are houses built from the local stone. The mainlanders marvel at the historic culture retained on this isolated backwater, trying to harness it for monetary gain. The remains of a derelict woollen factory attest to one such failed enterprise. This building is now to be turned into a museum and art gallery in an attempt to attract tourists. The locals regard these interventions with disdain.

Livings are mostly eked out from the sea either through fishing or working on the boats that ferry the few visitors. Learning to swim is frowned upon. When the sea takes lives they are mourned but the deaths accepted.

The story is narrated by nineteen year old Aoileann who was born and raised in a dark and cold house, the last dwelling before the cliffs are reached. Her days revolve around caring for her damaged mother, ‘the bed-thing’. Aoileann’s grandmother is the only person to pay her any attention, and that is as scant and silent as the older woman can get away with. The locals actively avoid the girl, believing she is cursed. Her father visits once a month, staying just one night before returning to the mainland. Aoileann resents the extra work his visits create, a show put on that he may pretend all is as it should be despite the glaringly obvious issues with his wife’s physical and mental health.

The author skilfully weaves the backstory of this family and place around the day to day chores that must be undertaken to keep the mother alive. Despite questions, eavesdropping, and searches of the dwelling, Aoileann still does not know what happened to create the being her mother now is. Photographs suggest her parents were once happy. Her grandmother closes down entirely when asked to explain.

Having set the scene, a catalyst for change arrives in the form of an artist, Rachel, and her newborn baby. Aoileann is mesmerised by this young women, doing what it takes to ingratiate herself into their lives. The reader has been fed snippets of some disturbing behaviour from Aoileann’s childhood. These now manifest in her treatment of the new residents. As someone who has never been loved by a mother, Aoileann is desperate for Rachel to grant her some of the attention she observes being offered so freely to the child.

The sense of foreboding is palpable throughout. This plays alongside the explicit horror of Aoileann’s mother’s situation, revealed gradually but with little reasoning explained until later in the tale. By the end the reader will be recoiling from all that has happened and then been perpetuated. The denouement is still shocking despite the foreshadowing.

A masterclass in creating a darkly disturbing character and sense of place. A unique and brilliant read that I couldn’t put down, reading it cover to cover in a day. It will take much longer to recover from the vivid and searing experience. A horror story I unreservedly recommend.

My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Tramp Press.

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Book Review: Corpsing

“What I was looking for at all times was an escape hatch, a way out of the present moment, to tunnel out of my totally unremarkable and pathetic self. To break the cycle of being a terminal disappointment: a disappointment as a daughter, a mother, a woman, failing at that implied contract of womanhood – of being nice and attractive and contained.”

Corpsing, by Sophie White, is taglined My Body and Other Horror Shows – appropriate given its focus on how one’s body cannot always be relied upon. It is a collection of essays that serve as memoir. The raw honesty of the subjects explored is both refreshing and horrifying, laying bare the sheer effort required to exist in a world where quietly keeping up appearances is the expected norm. Issues examined include the impact on self of: drug taking, grief, mental breakdown, motherhood, self harm, alcoholism. The author has both a caring mother and husband, along with three dependant children, but brings to the fore how living in the world must ultimately be coped with – or not – alone.

Divided into five sections, the first contains a series of essays that deal with the death of White’s father – a drawn out decline that finally ended shortly after the birth of her second child. The violence of birth is compared to the shrunken existence of a human body as it fades towards its inevitable end, when those left behind are cast adrift.

“Birth is explosive and volatile; the final moment of life takes this same explosion and detonates it deep inside us.”

The author struggled to cope with her sense of loss. She went through the motions of each day by keeping busy – looking after her children and starting a new job. And by turning to alcohol. Wine helped numb the sharp edges that threatened to cut her to pieces. What she needed was to be seen to be coping, not making a fuss.

From the outside, White’s childhood was not difficult. She was brought up by loving parents in material comfort. Peel back the veneer and there are all too common incidents that she knew needed to be swept under the carpet: older boys acting inappropriately with her four year old body, a friend’s mother’s who suggested a nine year old White eat fewer puddings to fit into a princess dress, being told she was ugly by laughing boys when a teenager. Absorbing, internalising these unremarkable events, as expected by those around her, leaves lasting scars.

Like many young people, the author in her teens experimented with alcohol and drugs.

“a place of refuge where I could take a break from being myself”

Aged twenty-two she took an ecstasy tablet while camping at a festival. The bad reaction suffered changed her forever. She describes it in detail, the start of her ‘madness’. There followed a breakdown, psychiatric help, the slow clawing back from thoughts of suicide. Years of travel, working as a chef or living meagerly off grid, provided ‘a strategy for restoring sanity’. The essays describing this period are terrifying to consider – the risks taken by young people that so many get away with – yet prove evocative and hopeful.

Returning to Ireland and getting married brought into sharp relief the relationship women have with their bodies and appetites.

“If you were born in the latter half of the twentieth century, then you will know that fat is the very worst thing. The worst thing to eat. The worst thing to be.”

This series of essays is wonderful in highlighting the many ridiculous habits so many absorb, and how women police not just their own bodies but those of others – family, friends, even strangers.

Later essays explore further the author’s descent into alcoholism, and how drunk girls are dehumanised.

“She teeters and topples, knees scuffed. She deserves nothing. No justice if she is victimised by an opportunistic predator. Opportunistic – it’s a word that practically commends this tenacious, moment-seizing, go-getting rapist.”

Another disturbing incident at a festival is detailed, but it is the drinking at home that many stressed out mothers may relate most to. The thoughts on motherhood are as honest as anything I have read on the subject – the pain and fatigue but, more than that, the judgement.

“When a man leaves work to attend to his child, it is commended; when a woman leaves work to attend to her child, it is noted.”

And, of course, the harshest judge of all is the mother herself – her inability to be perfect at all times leading to feelings of failure.

In amongst these excellent essays are topics that may be a little more esoteric: vampirism, adult thumb sucking, knitting. As the author approaches the end of the book: she gives birth to a third child, the COVID-19 lockdown is imposed, she suffers another breakdown and is taken into psychiatric care. It is a reminder that mental illness is managed rather than cured.

White has a writing style that is vehement in its desire for unadorned realism yet contains much humour. The macabre is balanced by recognition of how so many choose to live unaware, to turn away from the unpleasant. The conspiracy of silence that mostly surrounds the unpalatable truths of giving birth and mothering are discarded by the author witheringly.

As well as being eminently engaging, somehow this is an enjoyable read despite the blood, gore and madness. It is an eye-opening account of the strength required to hold a life together – a reminder to show compassion however ingrained judgement of others’ outward behaviour has become in an age of picture perfect social media.

Corpsing is published by Tramp Press. My copy was provided gratis by Turnaround UK.