Sydney Smith: The Lost Woman

Carmel Bird
Published in July–August 2012 no. 343

Carmel Bird

 

The Lost Woman
by Sydney Smith
Text Publishing, $32.95 pb, 280 pp, 9781921922480

 

In 1978 Christina Crawford published her memoir Mommie Dearest, an account of her life as the abused adoptive child of Joan Crawford. Shocking scenes in this book remain forever with readers. Sydney Smith’s account of life with her mother is, if anything, more horrific than Mommie Dearest. Traditional fairy tales often split the mother into the good mother and the bad mother, and the one in The Lost Woman is a baroque version of the bad. The memoir begins by invoking the story of Rapunzel and continues throughout the narrative to identify life’s key elements with the tropes of the folk tale. This is a story of imprisonment, escape, and transformation.

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Published in July–August 2012 no. 343
Carmel Bird

Carmel Bird

Carmel Bird is the author of Writing the Story of Your Life (2007). Her recent novel is Child of the Twilight (2010), and her children’s picture book Fabulous Finola Fox has just been published.

 

By this contributor

More in this issue « Robin de Crespigny: The People Smuggler McKenzie Wark: The Beach Beneath the Street »
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Comments (1)

  • Leave a comment

    Great gods below; the things we have to go through in families! This will definitely be on my reading list.

    Wednesday, 10 August 2016 20:25 posted by  Claire B Goodbody

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