Compulsive and ruthlessly honest—Girl With a Fork in A World of Soup, by Rosita Sweetman (Menma Books)
by John Kirkaldy
This is a compulsive book that you will read in one sitting.
It starts with three essential ingredients. Menma Books are to be congratulated on the most intriguing front cover that I have seen all year. The book’s title is memorable. Every writer knows that the first sentence is the most important. Here, Rosita Sweetman nails it. ‘The first thing I remember is being in Mum’s womb.’ The second, as a follow up, is: ‘It is crowded because I’m in here with my Twin Sister.’
The reader is sometimes not so much watching from the sidelines as clinging to the walls
What follows is a combination of personal biography, a feminist tract, and a family history that occasionally breaks out into open warfare via some emotional showdowns. This heady mixture is interlaced with a few bizarre happenings, some witty asides and some razor-sharp descriptions. The reader is sometimes not so much watching from the sidelines as clinging to the walls.
Sweetman is already the author of four successful books, with writing that demonstrates her extensive journalistic experience, all with a strong feminist flavour. She was a pioneer of the early Irish feminist movement and a keen supporter of its manifesto, Chains or Change, published in 1971. This was the Ireland where you went to England for abortion or divorce, and the north for contraceptives. Sweetman has pointed out that in 1968 only 161 girls took maths Leaving Certificate, as opposed to 2000 boys, and the gender pay gap was more of a chasm.
‘We weren’t told what had happened, we weren’t comforted, we weren’t given the opportunity to ring home. It was just, here is the news, now get on with the maths class.’
What appears like an idyllic start to life is spoiled by three things. A wealthy relative of Mum’s (everybody in the book is identified by their relationship to the author with a capital letter) dies and leaves her entire estate to the Archbishop of Dublin. Mum is outraged and sends a letter of complaint. A reply is delivered by a priest with an envelope containing £300. ‘This will send the twins to boarding school,’ she claims.
Boarding school was not a success: ‘When I emerged, seven years later, I was a different person: bumptious on the outside, frozen on the inside.’ Younger Sister, Cathy died: ‘We weren’t told what had happened, we weren’t comforted, we weren’t given the opportunity to ring home. It was just, here is the news, now get on with the maths class.’ The death drove an irretrievable wedge in her parents’ marriage.
Sweetman meets Film Star Man, aka J, at the Sister’s house in London. ‘I catapulted head first down love’s helter skelter. I had found my Heathcliff.’ What follows needs a well-trained gossip column memory to keep up with events. There are lashings of romance and sex, interspersed with abortion, pregnancy, a lot of swearing and insults, buying of houses, two children and marriage. J seems to be able to go from hot to cold in seconds. Life is complicated further because his job involves working abroad for long periods of time; Sweetman sometimes follows, sometimes not. Being faithful is not really on J’s agenda (Sweetman admits to a few of what she calls flings herself).
Fighting tiredness, depression and anxiety is a non-stop battle
A central drama emerges when it becomes apparent that J is having an affair with London Sister. When confronted, he proclaims, ‘I’ve been frigging her for years.’ Eventually a show down is arranged with most of the family and Mum present. It comes to blows but doesn’t settle anything.
Sweetman experiences the stark reality of single parenthood in the 1980s and 90s, when divorce is not yet recognised. Fighting tiredness, depression and anxiety is a non-stop battle. Trying to cope with young questions: ‘Are you crying because of Dad, Mum?’ Solicitors argue for a settlement. J becomes an increasingly distant figure as a father. A therapist is told: ‘I yell at them. I smash their toys. I sit in my kitchen at night, wishing I was dead, thinking my children would be better off if I was dead.’ Money is a constant worry.
‘The objective of the book wasn’t to hurt my family,’ commented Sweetman, ‘it was to free myself.’ The book is a life affirming one. If she does not spare others, she is ruthlessly honest about herself.
In the end, she escapes a turbulent relationship and emotional abuse. She begins to get her life together, break free, and begin her own journey. The book ends with her obvious pride in her daughter, Chupi, a well-known jeweller, and Luke, a film maker, and their respective families.
A fork is not a helpful device to cope with soup, usually the first course, but it is a useful implement to deal with what gets served next. Sweetman concludes the book by saying that she loves the world, but that ‘she sincerely wishes the Stupid Billionaire White Men would stop trying to destroy it.’
John Kirkaldy has a PhD in Irish History, worked for many years with the Open University and has been reviewing for Books Ireland since 1980. He has contributed to three Irish history anthologies, a school textbook, and has been involved in a number of Open University History documentary series. Some years ago he went round the world on a much delayed gap year described in his book, I’ve Got a Metal Knee: a 70-Year Old’s Gap Year. His latest book Life—A Fifty Fifty Path? is about luck and chance in history.
