Posted on Marjorie Simmins - Memoirs and More
Memoir Journal: I
MSVU Memoir Journal
MSVU Memoir Journal
by Marjorie Simmins
18 May 2009
"The latest: It Stops with Me: Memoirs of a Canuck Girl, by Charleen Touchette. Finally, some solid writing. Touchette is also a gifted visual artist and includes black and white and colour prints of her paintings in the book. As well, she is a curator, an educator, an activist and freelance writer. She has numerous book titles to her name, many with feminist perspectives, others that explore issues of cultural, religious and historical identities.
I don’t think Touchette and I would be best friends; this woman takes her politics very seriously and for all that she says she loves to laugh and enjoy life, her childhood was so bleak, violent and confusing, that it takes very bit of her sane self to keep the tortured self from imposing permanent depressions and mental and physical dysfunctions of all sorts.
That said, I have huge admiration for someone who has done as much as this woman has done, and succeeded in so many areas. I also admire someone who, as a young adult, chose a resoundingly sane and loving man with whom to share her life and make a family. If anyone could be forgiven for having chosen an unkind life partner, it would be Touchette. And yet she bypassed entirely the common pattern of abused children growing up to choose abusive partners. Now that’s a person who somehow protected her absolute core of sanity - against all odds.
It was a lovely and at the same disturbing read. My only criticism is the odd coyness about revealing the extent of her father’s sexual abuse. She builds up the tension in this regard again and again - in the art work and in the prose - but never flat-out says that she was raped, although this is intimated.
Likewise, she often repeats that the time was not right to tell her parents about the abuse (that would be tell her mother and confront her father) and the reader is left to guess that she never did tell them directly, but did show the art work around the country and beyond, and of course publish the memoir.
Again, you feel as the the entire book is building towards a showdown with the father - and yet this never occurs. Mind you, I don’t blame her for avoiding/putting off a showdown. The father remains a right prick throughout her life, for all that his violent ways tone down with age. It’s just that the story feels strangely climax-less - especially for a book that builds towards a climax almost from the first page.
All of which makes me sad. It seems that no matter how successful Touchette is, how brilliantly she has created and maintained a happy and healthy family life of her own, her fear of her father still dictates major decisions in her life. There are too many points I end up guessing about. Did she decide the pain of confrontation was not worth whatever good and liberating feelings she might receive back? Did the love she had for her mother get in the way of confronting the father? Was her mother’s role in the abuse (pretending it didn’t happen, looking the other way, blaming Touchette for the violence her father metes out to her) far too upsetting to explore in a meaningful way?
In the end consideration, I am not sure how I feel about the book."
"The latest: It Stops with Me: Memoirs of a Canuck Girl, by Charleen Touchette. Finally, some solid writing. Touchette is also a gifted visual artist and includes black and white and colour prints of her paintings in the book. As well, she is a curator, an educator, an activist and freelance writer. She has numerous book titles to her name, many with feminist perspectives, others that explore issues of cultural, religious and historical identities.
I don’t think Touchette and I would be best friends; this woman takes her politics very seriously and for all that she says she loves to laugh and enjoy life, her childhood was so bleak, violent and confusing, that it takes very bit of her sane self to keep the tortured self from imposing permanent depressions and mental and physical dysfunctions of all sorts.
That said, I have huge admiration for someone who has done as much as this woman has done, and succeeded in so many areas. I also admire someone who, as a young adult, chose a resoundingly sane and loving man with whom to share her life and make a family. If anyone could be forgiven for having chosen an unkind life partner, it would be Touchette. And yet she bypassed entirely the common pattern of abused children growing up to choose abusive partners. Now that’s a person who somehow protected her absolute core of sanity - against all odds.
It was a lovely and at the same disturbing read. My only criticism is the odd coyness about revealing the extent of her father’s sexual abuse. She builds up the tension in this regard again and again - in the art work and in the prose - but never flat-out says that she was raped, although this is intimated.
Likewise, she often repeats that the time was not right to tell her parents about the abuse (that would be tell her mother and confront her father) and the reader is left to guess that she never did tell them directly, but did show the art work around the country and beyond, and of course publish the memoir.
Again, you feel as the the entire book is building towards a showdown with the father - and yet this never occurs. Mind you, I don’t blame her for avoiding/putting off a showdown. The father remains a right prick throughout her life, for all that his violent ways tone down with age. It’s just that the story feels strangely climax-less - especially for a book that builds towards a climax almost from the first page.
All of which makes me sad. It seems that no matter how successful Touchette is, how brilliantly she has created and maintained a happy and healthy family life of her own, her fear of her father still dictates major decisions in her life. There are too many points I end up guessing about. Did she decide the pain of confrontation was not worth whatever good and liberating feelings she might receive back? Did the love she had for her mother get in the way of confronting the father? Was her mother’s role in the abuse (pretending it didn’t happen, looking the other way, blaming Touchette for the violence her father metes out to her) far too upsetting to explore in a meaningful way?
In the end consideration, I am not sure how I feel about the book."
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Posted May 21, 2009 by TouchArt Books
It Stops with Me by Charleen Touchette was banned at her hometown library in 2005. Touchette's Memoir of a Canuck Girl was on the ALA (American Library Association) 2006 Banned Book List. Bard College President Leon Botstein advocated for the book ban of It Stops with Me writing in December 2005, "it does not deserve First Amendment Protection." The ALA, PEN, USA, PEN American Center and the R.I. ACLU disagreed and launched a letter-writing campaign in support of It Stops with Me and against censorship and the book ban and It Stops with Me was reinstated to circulation at the Woonsocket Harris Public Library.
See also -
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It Stops with Me Subject of Franco-American Literature Scholars
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See -
"Presence Visible et Invisible de La Langue Francaise Dans La Litterature Franco-Americaine Contemporaine" by Peggy Pacini - Universite de la Sorbonne Paris IV
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