“We look back at the past and see the shape of the future.”
Rating: ★★★★★
In 1929, a three year old girl is kidnapped from a beach. She is found five days later, perfectly safe and dressed in all new clothes. Just like so much else of the child’s life, it is wrapped away and kept a secret, even from herself. The child was the author’s mother, and in this book she writes of the mystery of that event, her mother’s family, their secrets, and their relationships.
This book was really beautifully written. Laura Cummings is an art writer, and you can tell by the way that she describes people, places and events. She really paints a scene with words and makes you feel for these people who lives decades ago. I loved that though the author did not know all of the people she writes about, and even though things that they did make them seem somewhat cold and cruel, she manages to humanise them by interpreting details in the things they left behind, photos of them, and things that they wrote.
The story being told is a beautiful and sad mystery. Although, of course, Laura Cummings didn’t come up with the story and she can’t be credited with the surprises and secrets themselves, she had a brilliant way of weaving events together with more analytical passages where she explored a place or person in detail. I loved the passages where she analyses family photographs to get a feeling of the people in the photo as well as the person taking them. She managed to make the story more than a story of scandal and secrets but of real people, complex relationships and deep secrets.
This is definitely a 5 star read and one of my favourite memoirs.
Ink Drops Books 