The Other Son
By: Nick Alexander / Narrated By: Imogen Church
Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
InCREDibly well-crafted story but beYONd Trigger Warning!!!
And so… you’ve been warned.
Most people bashed this book because it took the tired story of: Dysfunctional Family and dragged it out. Cuz seriously, who wants to go into something as potentially ugly as THAT? Right?!
Oy!
Those negative reviews were from people who either came from happy pappy childhoods, or from those who have wretchedness in their own backgrounds and just don’t wanna see more of it. Me? It got an exTRAORdinary amount of votes for My Next Listen, and I gamely sauntered in, sure I could handle ANYthing.
Dude, I was sooo crying what are popularly known as Ugly Tears. Turns out I’m quite the Old Softie. Plus, it was so familiar, p’raps too familiar. But man! is the writing stellar!
Alice is a homebody, married to Ken, taking his emotional and physical abuse and trundling along ironing his shirts. For forty years. And they’ve two sons who were raised in such an environment. At first author Nick Alexander has us totally onboard with Alice, she’s a victim after all. But then he switches characters to focus on oldest son Tim and his life. When we see Alice again, it’s as a mother, not a victim. And she’s pushy, judgmental, exceeedingly in-your-face with putdowns. She’s horrid to daughter-in-law Natalya, and we see how Tim’s upbringing set him on his current road to trying to feed his soul, find his sense of self through greater and greater wealth.
Then back to Alice where she receives one beating too many, and the example of her good friend Dot having left her own husband, this at their “great ages”, leads Alice to flee. She runs to Tim, expecting open arms, but he’s not having any of it. He’s seen this before: Ken whales on Mum, Mum takes it, Mum quibbles a bit, Mum goes back to it. And so Tim, who has horrific memories from his childhood, just does NOT want to be drawn into this cycle. Ironically, it’s Natalya who is in Alice’s corner as she has her own memories of women being mistreated, and she is NOT fine with any of this. After Tim calls Ken to pick Alice up in the morning, Natalya warns her, and Alice is off like a shot, in the middle of the night, p’raps to sleep on Dot’s sofa.
And so we get to The Other Son, Matt, the black sheep, who spends his time globetrotting in an effort to run from the dysfunction, trying to find happiness, knowing only that it sure as HECK ain’t with his family. But Alice has no one to turn to, so she interjects herself into his life in France. Tho’ Matt dreads it all, tho’ the car ride to the cabin he and his partner live in is tortuous with all of Alice’s slights and judgments, and tho’ Alice will learn to see herself as others see her? It’s pretty ugly.
Bravo to Mr. Alexander for well and truly plumbing the depths of each of his characters, for showing that they are ALL waaaay more than the sum of their parts. They have exCRUciating flaws, complex motives, tragic needs, and SUCH healing that needs to be done cuz these people are suffering and limping along, trying to navigate Life with cracked and bleeding foundations of flesh and spirit to build upon. Alexander Tells not one bit; this is 12-hours of Showing a handful of people as they take tentative steps towards creating wholeness and wellness, learning to love and trust along the way.
Oh my gosh does Imogen Church knock this outta the park. Alice comes off as sympathetic in the beginning, but tho’ she becomes really quite loathsome, Church somehow manages to not entirely alienate her from the listener. Sure she snaps and snarks and judges, but there’s a rawness in there, a pain of not knowing how to manage when it’s all feeling and fear. All the characters are well-narrated, as far as their emotional depths go. My quibbles come from the accent choices: Natalya is a Russian caricature; and Matt’s partner is s’posed to be Canadian but he sounds American. There’s a difference, ya know? That said, however, all well and good.
The Other Son is truly, truly, TRULY bravely written: Who wants to go there? Who wants to really see how hideously we are shaped and formed by violence? And who wants to look at what a herculean task it is to try to be something beyond bare and wounded? This is my first Nick Alexander, and gosh I’ve got several of his novels in my Library as they’re ALWAYS going on sale. If The Other Son is anything to go by, I do look forward to Listening to them, just… eventually… not now.
For now, time to ponder. Time to reflect. Tissue, please…?
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