How Could He Do It?

by Emma Charles

"In many ways we were an ordinary mum, dad, two kids, three dogs, one rabbit, two guinea pigs. I stayed at home, studying with the Open University, and dad worked, and the kids went to private schools. We lived in a rather nice semi in a rather nice area of Edinburgh, with a rather nice Volvo in the drive, and took rather nice holidays, wearing rather nice clothes. I loved Daniel deeply and I thought—no, I was sure—he loved me deeply, too. And we both loved our kids deeply (I thought). And that was as it should be. We had it made. In some ways we weren't a completely ordinary family. There was Daniel, for one; he worked for most of the time we were married as a ship's engineer, and so he was away from home for up to four months and then home on leave for up to two. And Tamsin, our 15-year-old daughter, had specific learning difficulties. But I'm pretty an unlikely heroine. I am disabled because of back problems. I'm pretty fat—I've put on a lot of weight through lack of exercise and, yes, comfort-eating! Not the stuff of movies. But I never for a moment dreamt that my family was all that extraordinary—until that day when Tamsin broke down and told me that her father, my loving husband, had been sexually abusing her."

Genres: Memoir

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2008

Reviews

[Rebecca Fowkes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've had to give up on this, I'm just finding it boring and it's not grabbing my attention.

[Samantha Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was extremely sad and highlighted the fact that sexual abuse is sadly very common and is a a crime that doesn't discriminate. My heart ached for Tasmin, what a strong and brave young lady she is. I just felt at times that the way it was written was not so much to raise awareness etc
I understand that it must have been a nightmare and an extremely difficult time for the mother and she certainly did a wonderful job of supporting her daughters. However I lost count of the amount of times she felt the need to mention her disability, back, and that she needed a wheelchair. It really didn't need to be constantly repeated throughout the book. I also felt that she told people her story in a number of situations to gain sympathy when she wanted something. In other words I think her story was told and written about more for her own personal gain rather than for the purpose of wanting to raise awareness on sexual abuse, That's the impression I got from reading the book. Her disability also seemed to be used as a convenient excuse many times to justify herself , for example not being able to clean the microwave and needing the carer to do it, yet later on in the book she is able to paint the kitchen.

[Milly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I normally read books in 1 to 2days. This one took me 2 months!
I feel awful about what happens to Tamsin, but her mum... I just don't like her.
I found this book so boring! There were too many details that didn't bring anything to the story. Someone that also made me stop and think was when she said that she's the victim of abuse. No - she's not. I get it affected her as it obviously happened to her daughter and it was done by her husband, but in my opinion she's not the victim.

If I didn't buy this book in a charity shop I would stop reading it ages ago.

[Fara · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.3 ★

we often read book on dominal abuse on the victim's pov. this book is about a girl who have been abused by none other than her own father, only it's focused on her mother's pov. no matter how hard the government gave to the mother, she never give up, to neither of her daughters.

no one stood on them, not from the society, not even from the government, or even the so called church who was supposed to give support to the victim.

[Ukangel13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing story of how a mother and her two daughters overcame a terrible secret, An unusual look at it through the eyes of the mother, who put her daughters safety before anything else

[JoJo Kirkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an amazing, brave mother! And Tamsin and Sam are amazing too. I can't believe how much the government let them down!

Tamsin had been sexually abused by her father for 5 years, possibly more. She told her mother, who promptly reported it to the necessary people. The father, Daniel, got off very very lightly, went to jail for only a short period of time and because he couldn't get an income in jail, he was allowed to pay less child support etc. He was put on low risk sex offenders, and what I thought was bad too was that Emma lost money just because she got a divorce. He got away with so much! In the meantime, Emma and her children had to sell their house and the government put her into housing, where they had violent and loud neighbours. Poor Tamsin was very very ill, she started hallucinating and was put on anti-psychotic drugs as she was hurting herself because "The Doctors" told her to, otherwise she started thinking there were spiders crawling all over her. The anti-psychotic drugs were clearing her mind, so she started remembering certain memories about her father that she'd blocked out and that was what triggered the hallucinations. Even Sam, the younger sister, was put under a lot of pressure as she wasn't well herself and she also had a lot of responsibility in looking after her older sister, as Emma the mum had back problems and couldn't run after Tamsin when she took off.

All through this, Tamsin went to college and got mostly good grades despite missing a lot of school, and Sam did a lot of outdoor activities with the school and joined clubs etc which enabled her to go overseas. They got into horse-riding and eventually bought their own horse with the compensation money, they also bought their own house, and installed the bathroom and kitchen themselves etc. Emma was studying psychology in university, and she did tremendously well.

One thing I liked about this book was Emma didn't go into detail about Tamsin's abuse. She had opted out of all meetings where Tamsin had to disclose what Daniel did, she had enough to cope with and she couldn't handle pictures in her head. It must have been so hard for her, one day she is happily married, happily in love and trusted her husband with all her heart. The next day when Tamsin discloses it her whole life changed drastically.

All in all, I agree that one abused child is too many, and I now realise how much the family suffers, not just the person abused, and how much a sex offender gets away with. Even the church welcomed him back, family friends wrote to Daniel in jail knowing what he did. But poor Emma, Tamsin and Sam were mostly left to fend on their own for so long because the government failed them.

[Grammar*Kitten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like many ‘human interest’ stories these days, this novel was an autobiographical account, from the matriarch’s perspective, of a family’s darkest days when a mother of two young girls discovers that the man she loves, the father of her children has been abusing their eldest daughter.

Written in a very dignified way, with no ‘gory details’, this book sensitively deals with the way the remainder of this little family stuck together through bad and worse to try and the love between the mother and her two daughters which enabled them to get through the aftereffects of the disclosed abuse: poverty, disability, mental illness and everything else that life throws at them.

[Letitia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emma Charles is such an inspiration.
I'm glad I read this book when I did, it has given me hope that I can get through a tough time and find happiness again.
This poor family has really been through the ringer, but she never gave up and fought the good fight the whole way through.
Some interesting points on the failures of both the church and the government too.

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is probably the only book of true life abouse that does not actually mention in detail the actual abuse, this was a good read but was more about the mother of the girl that was abused than the girl herself.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't like giving my opinion on true stories as your talking about someone's real life but I will say the line about living in poverty was very funny. holidays once a year! That's not poverty. book was full of spelling mistakes and grammar errors.