My Phantoms
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My Phantoms
Buy Now for $16.99
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Narrated by:
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Helen McAlpine
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By:
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Gwendoline Riley
About this listen
Helen Grant is a mystery to her daughter. An extrovert with few friends who has sought intimacy in the wrong places; a twice-divorced mother-of-two now living alone surrounded by her memories, Helen (known to her acquaintances as 'Hen') has always haunted Bridget.
Now, Bridget is an academic in her forties. She sees Helen once a year, and considers the problem to be contained. As she looks back on their tumultuous relationship - the performances and small deceptions - she tries to reckon with the cruelties inflicted on both sides. But when Helen makes it clear that she wants more, it seems an old struggle will have to be replayed.
From the prize-winning author of First Love, My Phantoms is a bold, heart-stopping portrayal of a failed familial bond, which brings humour, subtlety and new life to the difficult terrain of mothers and daughters.
©2021 Gwendoline Riley (P)2021 Gwendoline Rileyhonest. no need for anything but.
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i was intrigued after reading positive reviews but was surprised at how one-sided and jaundiced this piece actually is. i do wonder if some of the tenderness of the book is lost in the reading, which, while accomplished, exaggerates potentially non existent class differences. Bridget the narrator/daughter is university education and speaks in posh Southern tones; her parents (and sister?) have broad Scouse accents. Culturally they are not so far apart -- B's grammar school educated mother, Hen, is a Guardian reader who spends time in art galleries, her father took her to see Chekov -- but the oddly polarised accents add to the impression that Bridget is constantly sneering at parents she regards as crass try-hards.
Hen is supposedly inauthentic and hard to communicate with -- but it is humourless Bridget who in fact seems the difficult one. Many conversations between them flounder with Bridget able to do little more than repeat "oh dear! oh dear!".
When Hen is upset because B won't allow her to visit her home or meet her partner like "normal people", Bridget gaslights her with more sneering at the idea that "normal" people do not conceal their partners. At no stage are Hen's feelings acknowledged or Bridget's lack of affect and insight scrutinised.
One review charitably attributed this to B being an 'unreliable narrator' but this doesn't lead anywhere. The potentially interesting and long suffering Hen is seen only through the narrowing, compassionless lens of Bridget about whom little is revealed.
Snooty daughter's sneering commentary on mother
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Fantastic
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