Love and Fury: A Memoir *****
Margie Orford
Jonathan Ball Publishers
Orford’s memoir is riveting, engaging and utterly beautiful. She tells of her loves — her family and her striving for freedom — as well as her fury, in the form of her rage against patriarchy and the abuse of women at the hands of men. Pregnant and married in her twenties, Orford quickly rebels against the trap of domesticity, a constant theme in her life. She and her husband Aiden move back to Namibia, where she grew up, and she has another two daughters there, all the time feeling the need to keep moving. Frustrated at being a stay-at-home wife, she starts working for a publisher of writing by rural women about their experiences during the bush war. She schleps her family to New York while she’s on a Fullbright scholarship, often plagued by guilt at leaving her children with her parents for long spells, but satisfied by the intellectual stimulation of her doctoral studies.
Back with her family in Cape Town, Orford works as an investigative journalist, focusing on crimes against women and children that are often linked to gang violence, the drug trade, illegal abalone dealing, rape, murder, child pornography, the sex industry and organised crime. This leads her to work with forensic experts, go on patrol with police officers, and visit gang leaders, one of whom has the words Vrou is gif tattooed on his chest. She visits the mortuary, where the many bodies of women and girls horrify her, especially that of an 11-year-old stabbed 103 times by her abusive stepfather. Writing as a journalist is not enough for Orford and she creates a fictional avenger of dead girls — Dr Clare Hart, “armed with her PhD in rape and femicide”. Her career as a writer takes off with the publication of her crime novels, which brings her international acclaim.
After five novels, the burden of her writing commitments becomes exhausting, and their violent content takes its toll on her mental health. With her girls grown up, a yawning chasm opens up between her and her husband, and her marriage begins to fall apart. Their eventual divorce leaves her distraught and unmoored, though the decision to end the marriage was hers. Orford sinks into a black depression that leaves her unable to write. She throws away her antidepressants and tries to finish her latest novel, which her sister Melle describes as a suicide note.
Now living in London, she unravels, with constant thoughts of suicide, but cannot compose an appropriate note. She goes back on antidepressants but feels like another person, an automaton. The “murderous male gaze” she has spent years writing about takes over her mind. Some shocked young friends tell her about a girl who stepped in front of a train, and she envies the girl’s escape from life. She goes to a psychoanalyst and, after repeated sessions, admits to having suicidal thoughts, whereupon her analyst slowly helps restore her to life, to work on her memoir. Orford meets her future husband, Gavin, also a writer, at a party, and senses he is a man with whom she can be true.
Then, her memoir nearly complete, she receives the devastating news that her beloved sister has died of a brain bleed. Orford’s memoir is of a life lived with passion and rage. It’s a wonderful book every woman will be able to relate to. — Gabrielle Bekes
BOOK BITES | Val McDermid, Margie Orford
This week we look at two standout books: the latest Karen Pirie novel by Val McDermid and Margie Orford’s beautifully written and engaging memoir
Past Lying: Karen Pirie No 7 *****
Val McDermid
Little Brown
McDermid is on top form with another DCI Karen Pirie thriller of deceit and vengeance, set against the disquiet and investigative challenges of a global pandemic. It’s a clever, complicated story of lies, manipulation and revenge, all investigated during lockdown. Yes, Covid-19 features heavily, as the story is set in the early stages of the pandemic. Pirie and her team, who specialise in cold cases, are all homebound and bored to tears when they receive a case from the National Library archivist detailing a murder scene from a recently deceased author’s unpublished manuscript. It is reminiscent of a real, unsolved missing-person case.
There’s something disquieting and occasionally emotional about revisiting the pandemic through a story set in those times of fear, Covid-19 tests, cabin fever, isolation and patients hospitalised with their anxious families left waiting. But this is done artfully and sensitively — the reader reminded of empty streets, social distancing and outdoor exercise limits — as the crime gets solved. — Gill Gifford
Love and Fury: A Memoir *****
Margie Orford
Jonathan Ball Publishers
Orford’s memoir is riveting, engaging and utterly beautiful. She tells of her loves — her family and her striving for freedom — as well as her fury, in the form of her rage against patriarchy and the abuse of women at the hands of men. Pregnant and married in her twenties, Orford quickly rebels against the trap of domesticity, a constant theme in her life. She and her husband Aiden move back to Namibia, where she grew up, and she has another two daughters there, all the time feeling the need to keep moving. Frustrated at being a stay-at-home wife, she starts working for a publisher of writing by rural women about their experiences during the bush war. She schleps her family to New York while she’s on a Fullbright scholarship, often plagued by guilt at leaving her children with her parents for long spells, but satisfied by the intellectual stimulation of her doctoral studies.
Back with her family in Cape Town, Orford works as an investigative journalist, focusing on crimes against women and children that are often linked to gang violence, the drug trade, illegal abalone dealing, rape, murder, child pornography, the sex industry and organised crime. This leads her to work with forensic experts, go on patrol with police officers, and visit gang leaders, one of whom has the words Vrou is gif tattooed on his chest. She visits the mortuary, where the many bodies of women and girls horrify her, especially that of an 11-year-old stabbed 103 times by her abusive stepfather. Writing as a journalist is not enough for Orford and she creates a fictional avenger of dead girls — Dr Clare Hart, “armed with her PhD in rape and femicide”. Her career as a writer takes off with the publication of her crime novels, which brings her international acclaim.
After five novels, the burden of her writing commitments becomes exhausting, and their violent content takes its toll on her mental health. With her girls grown up, a yawning chasm opens up between her and her husband, and her marriage begins to fall apart. Their eventual divorce leaves her distraught and unmoored, though the decision to end the marriage was hers. Orford sinks into a black depression that leaves her unable to write. She throws away her antidepressants and tries to finish her latest novel, which her sister Melle describes as a suicide note.
Now living in London, she unravels, with constant thoughts of suicide, but cannot compose an appropriate note. She goes back on antidepressants but feels like another person, an automaton. The “murderous male gaze” she has spent years writing about takes over her mind. Some shocked young friends tell her about a girl who stepped in front of a train, and she envies the girl’s escape from life. She goes to a psychoanalyst and, after repeated sessions, admits to having suicidal thoughts, whereupon her analyst slowly helps restore her to life, to work on her memoir. Orford meets her future husband, Gavin, also a writer, at a party, and senses he is a man with whom she can be true.
Then, her memoir nearly complete, she receives the devastating news that her beloved sister has died of a brain bleed. Orford’s memoir is of a life lived with passion and rage. It’s a wonderful book every woman will be able to relate to. — Gabrielle Bekes
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