Book Review: The Sitting Swing by Irene Watson

I meant to post this almost a week ago, but it took me longer to get the holidays sorted out than I thought it would – you can thank my mother and her ever-looming presence for that, as well as my disorganized life which is getting in the way more than I can stand at this point.

At the moment I’m in the midst of re-reading chapter twelve of The Sitting Swing, a fantastic biopic novel by Irene Watson. She talks in the book about her childhood, a very sheltered and even scary time that eventually led to severe problems later in life that landed her on a journey of, what I think can be called, rehabilitation.

I was really drawn to the concept of this novel, having been a child of abuse myself I understand how it can lead to a mess of personality and psychological problems later in life. I wasn’t in the same boat – cut her 5 miles to school in half and place me in Utah and it becomes obvious that my problems were different. My parents weren’t over protective, I wasn’t sheltered – they were hands-on abusive with my stepfather being so violent that he’d happily turn an oak dresser over on a child because they had a messy room, a room which they then had to clean or they weren’t fed ( no bathroom, no water and no sounds of any kind) until it was done.

The author writes at length about everyday worries and the urge for freedom from an oppressive and sheltering family. Stories about feuds with her mother over friends, school and everything in between and her relationship with religion.

Irene recounts the urge to flee, the hanging on for dear life of a single friend (Margie) and the undeserved vilification of that friend, the put downs and beatings. I over identify with so much of it. Of course, unlike Irene’s mother my stepfather wasn’t worried about whether my sister Laota and I were being poisoned against my parents by a friend, they were far more obsessed with whether or not we’d tell the police what was happening. As crazy as it sounds, we were always too afraid to. Looking back on it, now, I wish we had. I didn’t understand at the time that it couldn’t get worse by involving child welfare.

In The Sitting Swing, Irene also talks about her inspiring road to recovery and the somewhat normal life and easier relationships that people like us strive for.

Throughout the story you come to empathize with Irene. It’s so well and simply written, the story is so easy to immerse yourself in. Her story is very inspiring, I hope you check it out – I can’t recommend this book enough!

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