She left me the gun : my mother's life before me

Title:

Author:

Brockes, Emma.

Personal Author:

Brockes, Emma.

ISBN:

9781594204593

Publication Information:

New York : The Penguin Press, 2013.

Physical Description:

xvi, 298 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

General Note:

Originally published: London : Faber, 2013.

Contents:

If You Think That's Aggressive Then You Really Haven't Lived -- South Africa, 1932-1960 -- Chasing The Train -- London, Buckinghamshire, London -- Departure -- At the Archive -- A Very Interesting Group Of People -- Friends are Like Jewels -- Gold Jewelry -- Everything That Matters -- Hearsay -- Eloff Street On a Saturday Morning -- Tony -- Babanango -- Who Wears Hats To The Dentist? -- Freedom Day -- Afterward -- Epilogue.

Abstract:

"One day I will tell you the story of my life," promises Emma Brockes's mother, "and you will be amazed." Brockes grew up hearing only pieces of her mother's past--stories of a rustic childhood in South Africa, glimpses of a bohemian youth in London--and yet knew that crucial facts were still in the dark. A mystery to her friends and family, Paula was clearly a strong, self-invented woman; glamorous, no-nonsense, and frequently out of place in their quaint English village. Looking to unearth the truth after Paula's death, Brockes begins a dangerous journey into the land--and the life--her mother fled from years before. As she follows her mother's footsteps back to South Africa, Brockes begins to find the wellsprings of her mother's strength, the tremendous endurance which allowed Paula to hide terrible secrets from even her closest friends and family.--from publisher's description.

Personal Subject:

Brockes, Pauline Dulcie-Childhood and youth.

Brockes, Emma-Travel-South Africa.

Brockes, Emma-Family.

Subject Term:

Mothers and daughters -- Biography.

Child sexual abuse -- South Africa -- Case studies.

Abusive men -- South Africa -- Case studies.

Fathers -- Violence against -- South Africa -- Case studies.

Geographic Term:

South Africa -- Biography.

South Africa -- Description and travel.

Genre:

Autobiography.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	968.009 B864 XB	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	968.009 B864 XB	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"One of those memoirs that remind you why you liked memoirs in the first place... It has the density of a very good novel... As you do with the best writers, you feel lucky to be in Ms. Brockes's company." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times

A chilling work of psychological suspense and forensic memoir, She Left Me the Gun is a tale of true transformation: the story of a young woman who reinvented herself so completely that her previous life seemed simply to vanish, and of a daughter who transcends her mother's fears and reclaims an abandoned past.

"One day I will tell you the story of my life," promises Emma Brockes's mother, "and you will be amazed." Brockes grew up hearing only pieces of her mother's past--stories of a rustic childhood in South Africa, glimpses of a bohemian youth in London--and yet knew that crucial facts were still in the dark. A mystery to her friends and family, Paula was clearly a strong, self-invented woman; glamorous, no-nonsense, and frequently out of place in their quaint English village. In awe of Paula's larger-than-life personality, Brockes never asked why her mother emigrated to England or why she never returned to South Africa; never questioned the source of her mother's strange fears or tremendous strengths.

Looking to unearth the truth after Paula's death, Brockes begins a dangerous journey into the land--and the life--her mother fled from years before. Brockes soon learns that Paula's father was a drunk megalomaniac who terrorized Paula and her seven half-siblings for years. After finally mustering the courage to take her father to court, Paula is horrified to see the malevolent man vindicated of all charges. As Brockes discovers, this crushing defeat left Paula with a choice: take her own life, or promise herself never to be intimidated or unhappy again. Ultimately she chooses life and happiness by booking one-way passage to London--but not before shooting her father five times, and failing to kill him. Smuggling the fateful gun through English customs would be Paula's first triumph in her new life.

She Left Me the Gun carries Brockes to South Africa to meet her seven aunts and uncles, weighing their stories against her mother's silences. Brockes learns of the violent pathologies and racial propaganda in which her grandfather was inculcated, sees the mine shafts and train yards where he worked as an itinerant mechanic, and finds in buried government archives the court records proving his murder conviction years before he first married. Brockes also learns of the turncoat stepmother who may have perjured herself to save her husband, dooming Paula and her siblings to the machinations of their hated father.

Most of all, She Left Me the Gun reveals how Paula reinvented herself to lead a full, happy life. As she follows her mother's footsteps back to South Africa, Brockes begins to find the wellsprings of her mother's strength, the tremendous endurance which allowed Paula to hide secrets from even her closest friends and family. But as the search through cherished letters and buried documents deepens, Brockes realizes with horror that her mother's great success as a parent was concealing her terrible past--and that unearthing these secrets threatens to undo her mother's work.

A beguiling and unforgettable journey across generations and continents, She Left Me the Gun chronicles Brockes's efforts to walk the knife-edge between understanding her mother's unspeakable traumas and embracing the happiness she chose for her daughter.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

The riveting memoir about how a prizewinning British journalist reclaimed her mother's traumatic past. Brockes' mother, Paula, was notoriously reticent about the years she had spent growing up in Durban, South Africa. Her family and friends knew that Paula had expatriated to England in 1960 for political reasons but not much else. Among the few things she brought with her from South Africa was a handgun that Brockes discovered "wrapped in a pair of knickers." Paula considered the gun among her prized possessions and bequeathed it to Brockes without any explanation of why it meant so much to her. After Paula died of cancer, her daughter decided to learn about the South African side of her family and the life story her mother had suppressed. A database search in England unearthed evidence that her mother's father, Jimmy, had been on trial for murder six years before Paula had been born. Despite misgivings that continued research into her mother's past was "unfair, unethical [and] possibly unforgivable," Brockes traveled to Johannesburg to talk to the maternal relatives she had never met and search through government archives for more details about her grandfather. Her aunts and uncles remembered the family patriarch as a drunken "psychopath" who brutalized his children. Paula, on the other hand, was the heroic elder sibling who called her younger brothers and sisters her babies and tried to protect them against her father's savagery by shooting him. Court records revealed still more: that Jimmy had also been tried and later acquitted for molesting his daughters. The story of Brockes' quest to understand her mother's past is powerful on its own, but the backdrop against which most of the narrative unfolds--a country with its own history of rapacious violence--makes the book even more poignant and unforgettable.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.