to be saddened and confused by this section in Waterstones

[SlightlyUndead]

I know this is going to come out wrong and I will probably get flamed...

There are now so many paperback biographies/ autobigraphies written by adults who were abused as children that it has it's own section on our local Waterstones. I remember seeing David Peltzer interviewed a few years ago when "A Child Called It" was first published. It was one of the first
bestsellers of this kind, the interview was harrowing and deeply upsetting and I understood that writing it down was a kind of therapy for him. If the process of writing a book about such awful experiences helps with the healing process in some way, I'm all for it. But what I don't really understand is the 'popularity' of such books. I did read 'A Child Called It' in the light of all the publicity and obviously found it very upsetting. I am not saying we should 'close our eyes' to such things but surely if you really care, you can donate to/do work for the NSPCC or Childline. I have seen mothers in the playground reading one of these books after another and I just can't help feeling that there is something a bit gratuitous (spelling?) and voyeristic about it. The more 'horrific' the childhood, the better read?

Oh this does seem to have come out a but wrong but what I am trying to say is that it seems that these books are now a reading genre in themeselves now and I just find it disturbing that there is an appetite for it. But then I don't ever read any 'gory details' in the newspaper if it involves children being hurt....

Maybe I am missing something? I am happy to have it explained to me.

Wasn?t it proved that a child called it was all made up several of the sib?s came out and said yes Mum was a bit harder on him, but he was a bit more of a shit than the rest of us and none of the really graphic stuff actually happened and his come back was yes well they would say that. . . . . . . .

Wonder if in the future it will become the ?recovered memory? of this generation?

Re: Angela?s Ashes, my maternal grandmother grew up at the same time and in the same place, when Ma read the book her review was Yea, it was like that but they were no different to anyone else. No one knew they had it bad ?cause we were all the same

Really don?t know why people buy this crap, but then I don?t understand why people buy most magazines with so called celebrities (just had several days in hospital and was given so so so many of these and really WTF?????

I loved Angela's Ashes, but would never pick up a misery memoir about sexual or physical abuse because, well, there's a certain voyeurism to it. But AA is as much a social and historical account of a time and place and people as anything else. I have friends who hated it, but I loved it, and am always surprised when people find it offensive. Frank McCourt adds a certain amount of humour to the story, which makes it an easier read.

Angela's Ashes is as much a memoir of a society, a portrait of a culture typical of its time and place, as much as anything else.

I presume a lot of people buy and want to read these books because they too had awful childhoods and it's healing to know that they are not alone in having to come to terms with it.

"'Ma, kick me again I've run out of story'."
I have chest pains and you have made me LOL which HURTS!

YANBU

I have read one called "the family friend" about a woman who made friends with a family and started getting the young child into trouble, hiding things saying she saw the daughter take it etc. I'm very interested in the psychology side of it. Can't imagine reading anything called No Daddy No. Although I did research familicide as part of my degree (in psychology), I wasn't entertained by it at all. It was awful reading, but research into common factors is very important for prevention

I am slightly scared to admit that I do read these types of books (at least on this thread!) I work with kids in care (SW) and for me it is a way a reminding myself of the suffering and pain these kids and many others have experienced - to get more of an understanding of how a child copes/thinks of the abuse and the impact it has on them in later life. I guess I am saying I have a professional interest in them and they are as interesting to read (to me) as a psychology book.

For me the 'good ones' are when thoughts and feelings are explained ...not about the actual abuse that took place.

I can see where you are coming from Manda25. Tbh I think some people have no idea of what abuse is or consists of, they are unable to understand that such terrible things are done so often, and sometimes in apparently 'normal' families - at least 'normal' on the surface.

I think it's important to realise that the worst casualties of childhood abuse and trauma are the people who end up angry at life and the world, and are unable to process it in any way apart from self destruction (drug addiction etc) or agression (violence, rape, violent crime etc)

My doctor at the substance abuse unit said that 'if you scratch the surface of any heroin addict you will find a deeply hurt, damaged and traumatised individual.'

Of course most of us manage to achieve some level of functionality until we gain the will and ability to deal with it piece by piece.

Must admit though, that, aside for people involved in psychology, child protection, working with families or having personal experience with abuse, I don't really get why anyone else would immerse themselves in those books repeatedly.

I read the Tori Haydon ones about 4-5 years ago. I work with children and was initially really impressed by the way she sometimes flouted the rules to benefit the child.

But then there were so many books... I started to doubt the validity.

I still really love the ethos though... go with your gut ( in a safe way )

Well I'm glad that at last a few people have admitted to reading these books - like any genre of book, some are bad and some are good. I have an interest in psychology and human behaviour. I wouldn't say I read for titillation, just for understanding. I agree some of the books sound badly written and gratuitous, but there's a lot of self-righteousness running through this thread. For example, the Mary Bell book was an extremely interesting exploration of a child murderer - we do need to explore and understand the darker side of life because bad things happen. Honestly, I have a mental picture of you all shuddering like delicate Victorian ladies.

I agree with Manda, completely.

However, it does sicken me that there is a whole section of them - it seems like it's being made 'light of' (if that makes sense). I hate the titles like 'No Daddy No', the fact that fiction & non-fiction are blurred... that people might actually 'get off' reading them - that people read them for 'fun' not for 'understanding'... it all just seems so 'wrong' when it's being marketed the way it is and sold as 'entertainment'.

Chipping - exactly. There is a place for understanding the darker side of life, but my issue is the way these books have started to look like 'popular fiction'. The style/titles/content are all sensationalist and are designed to effectively sell on the strength of how 'awful the abuse was'.

If you just put Torey Hayden into Amazon you get 171 results. A deluge of mis-lit. And it's not just the titles - the 'teasers' on the dust jackets are mind-boggling as well "A six year old's struggle against her evil grandparents" "She lived in a dark cellar called home" - when the fuck did that become a 'sales pitch'

I don't read them, don't like them, don't understand the voyeuristic hunger for them. Not unlike the Daily Mail in serial form. All horrible pointless details from which we learn what, exactly? (rhetorical question).

Someone I work with reads that shit these books and she is lovely. At least she seems lovely How can people enjoy this stuff? There is something very unsavoury about getting pleasure from the misery of others.

To be fair, though, if you put 'Torey Hayden' into amazon, you might get 171 results, but there are only about 8 or 9 books by her, and several of those are fiction or children's books. Most of her books are about teaching, and have themes that go beyond just telling the story of what happened to a particular child. They were also written in the 80s and 90s, when there wasn't a lot of awareness of child abuse. I think they've all been reprinted in the UK in the past decade, but I originally read them when they were published in America back in the 80s (where they didn't have the white covers, italic writing, faded sad child picture), and they also didn't come across as misery-lit at all, but were quite inspirational for people wanting to teach or work with children. I think the publishers capitalise on the market for misery-lit, force all the books to look the same, write the silly strap-lines etc, and in many ways to an injustice to some books that don't deserve it, and would be quite successful in other categories if they didn't get categorised as misery-lit.

The section should be called 'Gratuitous self-indulgence' or 'Titillation' (on the part of the reader that is).

Suspect either of those would put people off buying.

I can see that there is some benefit in people who, for instance, work with abuse survivors reading some of these books as a way of increasing their understanding of their clients/patients (though given how manyh of the books appear to be exaggerated or made up entirely, it's possible that they may not actually be that beneficial at all...). I also wonder about the effects on someone who is an abuse survivor reading too many of them - maybe one or two would help someone feel that they are not alone and, if the book is one which ends with a reasonably positive conclusion of the abuse survivor reaching safety, it might encourage someone in a bad situation to reach out or take action. However, reading of more and more horrors and basically wallowing in it can't be healthy for someone trying to move on from his/her past.
And these books are now being marketed very much as titillation for the smug.

Mis Lit is big business, no doubt about it. Folks love it.

One of my reviews on Amazon is by a woman who is incensed that the book is a novel, like, you know, fiction.
She felt duped!

That said, I loved Angela's Ashes.

agreed,they are awful...but i did read the o e by cupcake brown,which was a real triumph over adversity story

Thank you SpookyMouse. You've summarised the issues much better than I did.

Maybe this belongs on a new thread, but what does everyone think about Waterstone's having a separate "Black Literature" section? Is this a good or a bad thing? I wasn't sure myself, especially as the section included some of the aforementioned "misery porn" like "Ugly". It seems to be a bit of a mixture of books about the struggle against racism and books which are simply by black authors.

I read "A child called It" and it was a real eye opener about the severity of the abuse children can be subjected to

I read it all even though at times i cried,and at others felt sick

the "jumping on the bandwagon" of all those who want to make money from their stories (and yes, probably some of them are not true, but made up or grossly exagerated)really concerns me though

I also worry that the ease of availability of these sorts of books might actually act as a catalyst for sickos who ENJOY reading them, and go on to abuse

BUT, I believe in freedom of speech etc, so i have no answers to this dilema!

I find it disturbing that anyone who works with abused children or abuse survivors would read these books in order to better understand the psychology of the child.

The whole point of these books is to make money by appealing to a mass audience. The writers have to write a narrative that is what that audience wants to read. So even if the events are true, the narrative structure and emotional content will be changed to make it more commercial.

A professional seeking to understand child abuse should have accounts and psychological profiles written for a professional audience to refer to, not be building up concepts of what is means to be abused based on works created for a consumer market.

As for the rest of the readers, I don't know what impact these books will have. My concern is that it will go the way that stories about crimes against adult women have gone. Things like Prime Suspect started out as shocking, then imitators became about titillation and now there has become a blurring between the treatment of fictional murder and torture as entertainment and the treatment of actual murder and torture presented in the media and discussed by the public (and more personally by people I know) as entertainment.

I remember a cashier commenting on my choice of paperbacks in Tescos once .... which led on to her choice of reading matter. With a great big grin, she told me that she "loved" books about awful childhoods - "I've read them all" ...... Jeez, I think it's just sick. How can you love reading about a child's degredation and abuse ? If writing about an experience is cathartic - and who am I to say it's not, then surely the act of writing it down, e.g. in a private diary or in a Word document would serve that purpose .... it doesn't become cathartic once it's been published, paid for and read by others FFS !

Oh my, these reviews