Motherwell, for readers not in Scotland, is a town outside of Glasgow that was structured around the steel and iron industry until the late-80s/90s when strikes and the closure of Ravenscraig Steelworks caused massive unemployment. The late Deborah Orr’s memoir is a reflective account of the ways the town shaped her parents’ lives and, in turn, her and her brother’s. Using the contents her mother had kept in their family home, Orr unpacks and processes complicated family dynamics, highs and lows of childhood, and the difficulties she carried into adulthood, all within the class and social perspective of growing up in a town that had lost the industry at its heart.
I like to think I have a fairly decent vocabulary, but Orr elegantly writes with words I had to look up and could only hope to naturally drop in the flow of conversation. I found the content of the book intriguing and eye-opening, and I was constantly drawn in by the way in which Orr conveyed the story of her life. There’s a lot of grit between the pages as Orr reckons with the emotional hoops and hurdles constructed within her family, but there’s also a lot of tenderness and compassion. From the beginning, it’s evident that Orr is processing a lot of hurt and confusion from her childhood along with the positive memories, namely the heavy expectations placed on her by her mother and the often-severe judgement from her father. Toward the end it felt a little heavy-handed on the narcissistic traits prevelant in their home, but overall it was an interesting portrayal of a family shaped by the city they lived in and the industry that used to be at its core.
2% Rating: 7/10
Recommend? Yeah, I think I would
Re-Read? Maybe
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