My Nana's Voice: An Irish Girl's Journey from Maiden to Mother to Crone
Written and Narrated By: Alicia McMahon
Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
Kinda sweet, kinda endearing, but I kinda shot m’self in the foot because—
—you see, I not only read the Publisher’s Summary of My Nana’s Voice before purchasing this, but I read the glowing reviews too. And what can I say? I was swayed, so I snapped it up. Then I listened to it, and oh my goodness: > yawn <
First, from the get-go, I loved McMahon as reader of her own work. What a lovely voice! I love the accent, I love the emotional little growl in it. It’s always iffy when an author narrates their own work, but McMahon has such a strong voice that it really added to the final results, really added a warmth and immediacy to her words.
-BUT-
The reason I chose this audiobook was because of the Maiden to Mother to Crone part. I mean, what woman DOESN’T want to have her personal journey as a Woman crafted in archetypal terms. I was looking forward to McMahon landmarking her own journey with well-balanced emphasis on all three, but instead?
MOST of the book is Maiden—which in this case means youthful “shenanigans” whereby we hear oh soooo much about McMahon getting drunk and vomiting a lot, of stealing, of lying, of meeting boys All. The. Time. I get it! I get it! We all have youthful hijinks in our pasts, and none of it’s pretty, sooo…. WHY write so much about it? And good cow, why try to pretty it all up by calling it her Maiden? It’s just little party girl buffoonery.
Then we go onto McMahon’s Mother phase where she gets knocked up really young to a guy who’s alREAdy showing ominous signs of worthlessness. Turns out that he’s a drunk and a drug addict and is physically, verbally, emotionally abusive. Listen to her Nana’s Crone Voice and leave? Nope, stay in the situation and get knocked up yet again. I know I know I know, most memoirs are all about the hard times and surviving them and going on to be successful, but as a reviewer who’s listened to a gazillion and six Memoirs by now, I’m pretty tired of the ones of women giving their power away and showing their strength, all the while raising children to be indoctrinated into the Women Are Strong By Surviving the Regular Beating spiel, by living to breathe another day, living to get pregnant another day, living to depend on other people to get them out of bad situations another day.
Cuz McMahon ain’t listening to her Crone’s voice; she’s calling up the women at the Shelter left and right. It’s touching that she found so many good people, and I DO love it that when she tells us of how many people came through for her, she frames it as a: Pay it forward, I will do unto others the great good that was done unto me, but when it comes to her Mother phase, I didn't feel any stand up and cheer moments.
By the time I got to the end, where McMahon is wildly successful, working on summits for bigwigs and drinking a beer with Keith Richards, I found that I just couldn’t relate. I went from rolling my eyes at Puking Beer Shenanigans to wondering why on earth she wouldn’t use birth control in an abusive relationship (Yeh yeh yeh, I KNOW I’m being pretty much unforgivably, judgmental and harsh) to, Really? You’re Gonna Inspire Women by Relaying That Which None of Us Will EVER Experience?
Okay, off my high horse (Which for this review is mighty high…) and onto who might like it: Women who feel trapped and need Need NEED to get out NOW! Also anyone who wants to listen to a few hours of youthful indiscretions. Also anyone who wants to get a snippet, just a snippet, of a Nana (Who yes, lives in Ireland but who, no, is not Irish originally, but there you go) who sounds sweet and awesome.
Also, this is for people who are looking to catch themselves talking with a bit of an Irish lilt to their sentences after listening to McMahon’s lovely accent.
Happy St. Paddy’s Day with this wonderful accent, but good golly gosh, am looking forward to a Memoir that has a bit o’ fun in it…
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