Where You End and I Begin
A Memoir
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
When eight-year-old Leah's parents get divorced, her mother, Cessie, flees her conventional life as a suburban housewife in search of a glamorous big city career in journalism. In the chaotic years that follow Cessie lurches from one apartment, job and toxic romance to the next, with her adoring daughter in tow. Cessie describes her parenting style as 'benign neglect' and their family motto 'Commitment sucks the life right out of you' is tacked up on every rental fridge.
In the aftermath of a disturbing sexual experience at a pool party, Leah finds herself crippled with anxiety. When she confides in her mother, Cessie makes an astonishing disclosure in turn, one that alters everything: from the age of twelve to fifteen she was in a clandestine relationship with her middle-aged, married riding instructor. The damage inflicted by the 'Horseman', Cessie explains, is the reason for all her regrettable life choices - marriage, divorce and even motherhood itself.
Both women spend the ensuing decades haunted by the spectre of the Horseman, until they decide to investigate what became of him - an ill-conceived quest that will test the bonds of love and redefine their relationship forever.
Written with unflinching candour and wit, Where You End and I Begin explores the dark reverberations of victim narratives and the power of filial love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A mother's fraught history prompts an intelligent and affecting interrogation of generational trauma in the magnificent latest from McLaren (A Better Man). When a teenage McLaren was raped by a friend, her mother, Cecily, confided in her about her own history of abuse: as a 12-year-old, she was groomed and raped by her horseback riding instructor, referred to here only as the Horseman. The abuse continued for several years and would reverberate through both Cecily and McLaren's lives—as McLaren's therapist explained, " can be... passed down. Especially between mothers and daughters who lack boundaries." Cecily took pride in being a best friend rather than a mother to McLaren—openly discussing her sex life and leaving McLaren to take care of herself in their bustling household. McLaren, meanwhile, remained fascinated by the specter of the Horseman on their lives: "The story of the Horseman had become something else—a story that was my mother's but also indisputably mine. In that story, my story, there were no obvious victims or predators, just a mother and a daughter trying and failing to love each other." As McLaren untangles their complicated bond, she offers an unconventional meditation on consent, love, and motherhood that's imbued with radical compassion when McLaren later becomes a mother herself. The result is a kaleidoscopic portrayal of family ties at their most complex and beautiful.
