Highland Book Prize finalist triggered by sitting at dying mother's bedside
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Memoir and fiction hold hands in Highland-based writer Cynthia Rogerson’s Wah! Things I Never Told My Mother, this week’s Star Read.
Triggered by journeys to her dying mother’s bedside back in California, the writer’s book is a series of linked short stories that look back, excavating her past with playful humour, kindness and a fresh, unflinching gaze on how it all looks from now.
Cynthia’s mother didn’t die when it was first expected. Returning to her former home in America to be with her allows the writer to delve into her memories – including hitchhiking to Mexico, trainhopping with her brother, some things that now might seem reckless, or recalling a full Irish breakfast, a visit from a ghost, some former wild child moments she never told her mother about, as she tells us in the book’s title.
“The book is a memoir, but in the back I have acknowledged that I have had to fill in some parts with my imagination...” the writer reveals in end notes.
Taking readers back to people and places in her past, the writer’s wry humour is a constant: “Europe could do no wrong. Every particle of terrible food, every item of smoke-filled air, each crumbling edifice was wonderful.”
In the novel Wait For Me, Jack, about the lifelong relationship of couple Jack and Milly, Rogerson created a fictional version of her own parents.
In WAH! her portraits of her real-life parents power through her own experiences and come alive on the page: “How had they stayed married for sixty years without killing each other? ... It was hard to capture the complexity of a long marriage. I wanted to tell the truth, or a truth.”
At the Highland Book Prize shortlist announcement, one of the judges Kapka Kassabova commented: “WAH! explores the making of a self through personal relationships. Written with grace, humour, and panache, it effortlessly traces the author’s intimate journey across cultures, eras, and stages of life."
The other finalists on the Highland Book Prize shortlist are:
Tony Davidson Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer (Woodwose Books, 2022);
Story of creating a home for art ...
Duncan Gillies Crann-Fige/ Fig Tree (Acair, 2022)
Ali Smith Companion Piece (Hamish Hamilton, 2022).
The winning title from the four HBP finalists will be announced at an online award ceremony on Tuesday, June 6. This event will include readings and discussion with all four shortlisted authors, before the winning title is revealed. One author will be awarded a £2000 prize by the Highland Society of London and will receive a writing retreat AT he Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre.
Wah! Things I Never Told My Mother (Sandstone Press, £9.99). More:
Reviews of other finalists:
Tony Davidson Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer (Woodwose Books, 2022);
Duncan Gillies Crann-Fige/ Fig Tree (Acair, 2022)
