The Long Tail of Trauma by Elizabeth Wilcox

 #bookreview

From the book’s blurb: “The Long Tail of Trauma covers the lives of five generations of the author’s maternal ancestors from 1904-2018, through Europe and America. The long tail refers to multigenerational family trauma that begins near Liverpool before World War I and continues through Operation Pied Piper and the PTSD era in America.

The author’s journey becomes an exploration into attachment and the legacy of maternal trauma on intergenerational mental health and relationships. Through documenting her forebears’ stories, author Elizabeth Wilcox gives us a greater understanding of what a mother must overcome to erase the epigenetic stain of early childhood trauma.”

My reaction: This is a very hard book for me to review. All advance reading about the book led me to believe that the book was a straight memoir. Then I read the last sentence of the foreword which says, “So here follows an imagined history of maternal memoir that is my attempt to find truth.” Completely truthful or truthful to an extent? Truth as the author sees makes sense to me. It is the author’s memoir of her mother’s trauma brought on by her grandmother’s traumatic experience.

In any event it seems to me that there were many circumstances that were extremely traumatic, but there  were also many events and circumstances which I did not see as extremely traumatic but were described as if they were. So, there were many times I would say why can’t she let that particular event go and move on. It felt as though there was too much introspection and dramatization. 

Ultimately, I was drawn into the story and let go of my reservations and understood the depths of the agony better. The story tells of generations deeply affected by trauma that begins with the first generation and carries through to the next two. This is something many may see in their own lives, but, thankfully,  not with destructive background of two world wars among other things.

I see this book as more of a psychological family exploration than I do as historical fiction.

3.5 stars, but rounded up to 4 stars.