Book Review : SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER A Memoir By Ashley C. Ford
The word "complicated" may sound like an excuse when it comes to describing Ashley S. Ford's childhood, yet it may be the only correct way to describe it. Ford chronicles those years in vivid, agonising detail in his astonishing debut novel, Someone's Daughter, which is tinged with wrath and misunderstanding and tinged with love and beauty (out June 1).
Ford can't picture a world without his large, noisy, entangled family, especially the two women at its centre: her mother and grandmother, who he grew up with in Indiana. Ford's mother is attractive and playful at times, but she also severely punishes her children for seemingly small wrongdoings, and Ford learns to deal with this seeming split in her personality, which she recognises as the difference between her loving "mom" and punitive "mother."
Ford chronicles those years in vivid, agonising detail in his astonishing debut memoir, which is tinged with wrath and bewilderment and tinged with love and beauty.
She craves his affection and protection, especially as she approaches puberty and older men begin to pursue her. Ford accepts responsibility for his actions and learns to be ashamed. She adds, "My body changed into something that could only be perverted."
At the age of 13, a man approaches her and asks for her phone number. Ford becomes enraged when he learns his age. He urges her to go home and tell her mother that she needs to dress her like she's thirteen. "You were barely healed by someone's child." Ford examines her slacks and T-shirt. “How come my clothing say I'm under the age of thirteen?” What if I continued to claim that I was not a child to the rest of the world?"
Ford's first romance ends in a traumatic attack, and she learns of her father's crime shortly afterwards. Ford's world has been broken, and her adolescent years have been consumed in chaos and poverty. She recognises that she must go, even if it means losing the family who has defined her for so long.
Exceptional quotation
“I wondered if there was anything wrong with me in the solitude of the nights that persisted at the conclusion of each day, no matter how joyful or productive the day had been, because I had always loved my father first and foremost. When I inquired why no one who knew the truth could look me in the eyes, it made sense. They didn't want me to be embarrassed, but they already were. I could see it on their faces as they pointed in my direction."
- A storey that spans three generations (grandfather, grandmother, parent, child)
The sweet place in summary
Ashley S. Ford focuses on a painful and violent childhood, coloured by her father's imprisonment, her mother's rage, and loneliness, in Someone's Daughter ($ 23), in order to find moments of love that may bring her to serenity.