Not Letting Go

Today on my blog, I’m recommending The House We Grew Up In, a compelling and wonderful novel by Lisa Jewell

This was a choice for the bookclub I belong to (And may I take a moment out to recommend that you join a bookclub. If you don’t know of any that meet, ask at your public library. They are veritable fonts of information on all things book, and bookclubs. Do it. You’ll thank me later.), and all of us in our small group agreed—this one was a winner.

The House We Grew Up In revolves around the lives of Lorelei Bird and her family—her husband Colin and their four children—Megan, Bethan, Rory and Rhys and neighbor Vicki. Lorelei is a hoarder, you know, one of those persons who lets their possessions pile up in boxes around them. It wasn’t always this way with her. At one time she was a a whimsical mother who tacked up all her children’s school papers on the wall. She was the sort of mother any child would want—cooking, baking, having family parties, doing cartwheels in the backyard, and taking care that the annual Easter egg hunts in the backyard went on without a hitch. It is here we get the first inkling of her disorder, when she must save the colorful foils from the chocolates, because they are so pretty.

When one of her her sons dies by suicide, the entire family goes into a downward spiral. Each family member deals with the death in a different way, including his mother who just begins adding and adding and adding to her collections.

As the book plunges toward its horrific ending, we discover why Lorelei turned from being a happy, loving—although eccentric—mother, to one who would not throw anything out, and who would eventually drown and starve in all her stuff.

I know some of you are reality TV fans, and a program like Hoarders is sometimes interesting to watch. What is amazing to me about the few TV hoarding TV shows I’ve watched is the unbelievable link the hoarders feel to their stuff, the weeping when it is suggested that a broken DVD be thrown out. People with hoarding disorders sometimes choose their junk over their families. Their children will walk right out of the door and yet they choose to remain with their boxes.

The disclaimer at the beginning of the particular TV show I've linked to says that “hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous or unsanitary.”

I wasn't sure I wanted to read a book about hoarding, but I found once I picked up this book, I could not put it down. It was one of those books that got propped up on the kitchen counter while I cooked and washed dishes and got carried with me in my purse everywhere I went.

Good writing and a well-put-together sentence is all important to me, and the writing in this book sparkled.

Here's an example. At one point in the book Lorelei says, 

Look at that sky, just look at it. The blueness of it. Makes me want to snatch out handfuls of it, and put it in my pockets.

Maybe that is the essence of hoarding—when a person loses the ability to simply sit and admire things, but instead needs to own them, and store them within your own walls and keeping.

Here’s another description on hoarding from the novel:

Everything was halfway to being where it needed to be, everything was a work in progress, with no systems, no logic, no sense of organizations about any of it.

And, here is how her neighbor Wendy describes Lorelei to her granddaughter:

You see, your nana is a very special lady—she is really quite magical you know—and when she looks at the world she sees it in a very special way, like it’s a party bag or a toy shop, and she likes to keep bits of it. And she feels sad when she throws things away.

Even if those hoarding TV shows don’t appeal to you, (they don’t to me, especially) I think you will enjoy this book.

I will be reading more of Lisa Jewell, and in fact, have another of her books I Found You just downloaded onto my Kobo.

Next Time: It’s more suspense with The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan.