By Megan Thomas
When I took this picture in the Summer, I had planned to crop it down so all you could see was my friend Sarah’s beautiful dress. Looking at it now, though – yes, I’m catching up on posts that have theoretically been possible since Summer, because I read faster than I can review – I actually love it without the crop. The birthday cake with sprinkles, the bare feet of freshly cut grass, the Tupperware under the dress for a nice smooth background, the slightly scrunched checkered picnic blanket… A pretty perfect Summer day.
Now, onto Patricia Lockwood’s memoir about her childhood spent in an “impoverished, nuclear waste-riddled area of the American Midwest”, as the daughter of the local Catholic priest, mixed in with a portion of her adulthood in the same location, when a series of medical mishaps meant her and her husband had to move in with her parents. Don’t get too confused: you are right, priests can’t have sex, which means, if you know how these things work, that they can’t have children, either. Lockwood’s family’s situation is fascinatingly unique, though, and after a religious awakening on a submarine, her dad was converted and approved for the Catholic priesthood by the future Pope Benedict XVI… despite already having a wife and children. We do love a loophole!
Having published her poetry to varying degrees of success before moving home in her thirties, Lockwood has the privilege of being able to write her memoir from the comfort (and associated discomfort) of the place where it all started, surrounded by the people, places and things which inspire the anecdotes interlaced throughout the book.
Key characteristics of the memoir include the constant thread of Lockwood’s wit; self deprecation at its most raw, realistic and silly; sexualised metaphors aplenty; and the glorious irony of how relatable ordinary human life’s idiosyncrasies can be.
Big shout out to my friend Abby, who grew tired of telling me to read it so sent me home with her copy after I’d not-read-it one too many times. I’m grateful, I loved it as much as you said I would.
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