Julie Myerson - why am I not surprised that a book has materialised concerning her own son's drug issues?

[glasjam]

Read this is in today's Observer www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/01/julie-myerson-novel-drug-addiction

Does anyone else have the uncomfortable feeling that I have on learning that she is writing about her son's drug problems? I know that writers often mine their own personal experiences for material but I think she's putting her literary endeavours ahead of her son here. From what I can gather, he is still young, his drug issues are ongoing, and although he is out of the family home, surely this is risking any possible future reconcilliation? I also baulk at the way she "weaves historical research about Yelloly with her disturbing account of her son's ejection from the family home" It just smacks of middle-class-writer angst.

My cynicism is further fuelled by my very strong suspicion that Julie Myerson is the author of Living with Teenagers - but that's another story...

hmmm, I rather agree with morningpaper that Rachel Cusk and her ilk probably immunised me against postnatal misery to some extent. so maybe JM is doing something similar for us all re teenagers? I am finding myself anxiously Planning Ahead and wondering whether I need to go to some sort of parenting bootcamp...

And we are not being kidney.

Live and let liver?

Am amazed you all have the heart for these organ jokes...
tsk

no wonder he was deperate to get bladdered

That Kate Figes book - about the miseries of motherhood - was quite a good innoculation for me. I read it with some horror when pregnant, and then when I had my first baby (an easy baby and no PND) it seemed much better than I'd anticipated.

Better to find it easier than anticipated than the NCT line which insisted childbirth and breastfeeding were enjoyable, even orgasmic, activities....

Ooh, all this talk of entrails has remined me of an OP of onebat's, in which she quoted this line from the Great and Syphilitic Nietzsche:

"The literary woman, unsatisfied, agitated, desolate in heart and entrails, listening every minute with painful curiosity to the imperative which whispers from the depths of her organism "aut liberi aut libri [either children or books]."

Myerson pulled out her entrails from the depths of her organism and, lo!, it was both a child and a book!

Yes, all this misery lit is definitely performing a huge public service. I think where JM has miscalculated here to an extent is as to how much more commetary there is on everything nowadays. so there are newspapers and then internet forums commenting on newspapers and then newspapers picking up what internet forums are saying and then the telly getting involved. Everyone has a platform. I think that is probably where she was "naive".

It wasn't the teenagers' behaviour that shocked me in LWT - I know teenagers can be like that. It was her behaviour - the way every time they acted up, she behaved like a victim, and brought her overemotional neediness into every exchange with them. So she'd kick one out, then run after them pleading for them to confide in her. Or they'd give her a mouthful of abuse, and then she'd cave and give them late-night lifts to go and see their mates.

In that sense it wasn't about "Living with teenagers", it was actually about "Living with a self-pitying, inconsistent and narcissistic parent". I'm sure that's why it wound so many people up so much - that they could see so clearly how much she was winding her kids up. Like the poster who said even her own teen reading it would exclaim "get a spine!" I remember from being a teenager myself, that that is the kind of behaviour in a parent that they despise and disrespect the most.

Jake Myerson Support Group on Facebook!

She is not naive. A book like this has a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign behind it, which starts a good nine months before publication. I know, I used to do it for a living. She would have agreed to the angle the publicist pushed to the media, the 'hook' she agreed. Nothing unpremeditated about. She quite cooly decided to offer up her child's privacy for personal gain. Nothing new there then. Its worked a treat! in publicity terms. In personal terms, well might well be surprised at the vitriol, but then most narcissists are when confronted by an alternative reading of "their' story.

Very articulate comments on there - far more articulate than the JMs' efforts.

I think he will come out of this well, in his own life I mean. This whole explosion of commentary should reassure him that he isn't insane, that people do understand how his parents' attitude has been less than helpful and that he can stand up as an articulate and thoughtful young man and proceed from there, and not be seen by everyone as this hysterically portrayed "drug addict" who has thrown his life away.

Lol at mp and his good looks. I bet book and record deal and modelling contract will be forthcoming - seriously.

there will certainly not be a shortage of ladies of a certain age who would like him to mow their lawns

I keep wondering how the younger two children feel about it. After all they have got to go into school or university or whatever every day and know that everyone is reading stories about the implosion of their family life written from the point of view of everyone in their family except them.

Comment on Facebook support group for Jake:

How much has this got to do with drugs or even Jake? Listen to his mum's self-pity, absorb the fact that her own dad threw her out at 17, and you see it's all about her. She doesn't know where she ends and Jake starts, which is why she doesn't see this book as a betrayal. What's been done to Jake is called "scapegoating." One child (often the oldest) is held responsible for everything 'wrong' in the family. Jake's parents go further - their golden boy can't really be to blame, so cannabis becomes the villain. I heard Julie Myerson on R4, and she hasn't a clue how she comes over. Jake seems more mature than either parent.

Had the Myersons read "Raising Boys" by Steve Biddulph or "Teenagers" by Rob Parsons they would perhaps not have made such a hash of it. For a parent to allow teenage conflict to degenerate into violence is plain wrong. Neither parent seems to see that they are at least part of the problem. In their world problems are always external to their perfect life.

I am now pmsl at Times report that she Denied It Three Times. D'you think a cock crowed to bring her to recantation?

And on the Third Day her advance will Rise Again.

She certainly made sure of her 30 pieces of silver. And then some!

She'll need it to pay for the family therapy. Hold it, I feel a book proposal coming on.

Book proposal:

"My struggle with the hell that is narcissism".

Can I also point out she is saying in the Times that no book has had this much fuss since the SATANIC VERSES?

Er, Juliebabe, this is some criticism of the fact you've hung your kids out to dry. Last time I looked, Mr Rushdie had a rather greater problem.

Well, you know, I'd love to stage a book burning demo, but I'm completely tied up until April...

can we expect a Heather Mills moment on the GMTV sofa?

lolol @ satanic verses

Hmm I'm not sure that you can compare a international and religious displomatic crisis with the annoyance of a few housewives and some pot-heads on the Guardian talkboards

Oh my. I've just read that Times piece, and the extract. It made my blood run cold. Salome is absolutely right about her. In the extract it was all about 'writing' and 'understanding writing' and nothing whatsoever to do with the responsibility of being a grown-up and a parent. She even says she felt like a 'child' walking with him. She wants his love, she wants, wants, wants. That was scary. I don't want to think about any of this anymore.