PROMO
Bows in the Clouds by Mary McFadden
A vicious attack when only a young girl, leaves Mary with PTSD and a reliance on alcohol to deal with her problems. When her youngest son dies following only weeks of cancer, her turn to the bottle means her two sons at home and her husband have also lost a mother and wife, leaving her to work at recovery.
Mary McFadden is a boisterous and young nine-year-old girl in Ireland. One day she wants to show off her new yellow cardigan that her grandmother has knitted for her, to her friend Alice. At her friend’s house, however, she is viciously attacked by the two Alsatians, Prince and Rex, in their backyard. Not long after, she develops PTSD, which doesn’t get diagnosed for a while but leaves her shamed and struggling to cope.
She loses her confidence and develops anxieties and fears. Once her father leaves the house permanently to set up home with a new family, she becomes even more anxious and develops ticks and traits that leave her confidence and self-identity crumpled.
At fourteen she leaves school, which by then has become by an ordeal for her, and begins work at a textile factory. There her fears and shyness are overpowering and limiting for her until she discovers the power of alcohol.
Her new method of resolving her issues and fears becomes her go-to method for self-medication. Alcohol becomes part of her life.
As she gets older, she meets her husband, Dessie, and they have three sons, Ryan, Liam and Danny boy. Alcohol is there as a relief, and always in the background.
When her youngest son Danny is eight years old, and her older two are ten and fifteen, he is diagnosed with cancer right before Christmas in 2009.
Within only weeks, he was to begin radiotherapy and chemotherapy but catches pneumonia. The cancer is causing his organs to shut down and treatment is no longer possible. He is placed in an induced coma, and allowed to go home to die with his family and friends.
Over the next four years, unable to cope with her son's death, Mary turns to alcohol. Within a couple of years, she is a full-blown alcoholic, stealing coins from her sons' piggy banks, and unable to get out of bed in the morning without a drink from the bottle she keeps under her pillow.
With not only her family and friends alienated, but also her loving mother, who she has always considered a soul mate, she has no hope left at all. One day, realising that there is only death left around the corner for her, she asks her husband for help.
The first step is a 12-week program where she finds sobriety and manages to stay a year off alcohol afterward. That doesn’t last and she finds herself facing another six-week program. This time she finds strength in the AA fellowship and by facing all her fears, finally confronts her initial trauma after her attack from the Alsatians that had left her injured.
With humour, an unerring ear for voices and dialogue, and plenty of love and humility, we follow Mary as she makes amends and looks over her life. Her husband and family forgive her but the question is whether she can forgive herself after all she has done. For a time, her sons had not only lost a brother but a mother as well.
We read how her mother gets ill as well and dies, leaving Mary without her support from all these years.
This is a beautiful but unflinching look at the hope that can still be found after death, suffering, and time spent recovering.
Mary McFadden is a recovering alcoholic who is facing every fear she can find now at 52. This addiction recovery memoir is part of her new determination to fight her weaknesses. After dropping out of school at 14, she has not found the challenge trivial. With every step she gets stronger and more confident, and is happy to tell others about how she has faced and embraced her new life. Mary is a mother and wife and lives in Ireland. Bows in the Cloudsis similar to Leslie Jamison’s memoir The Recovering, Smashed by Koren Zailckas, and Lit by Mary Karr.
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