Motherwell: A Girlhood

by Deborah Orr

Just shy of 18, Deborah Orr left Motherwell - the town she both loved and hated - to go to university. It was a decision her mother railed against from the moment the idea was raised. Win had very little agency in the world, every choice was determined by the men in her life. And strangely, she wanted the same for her daughter. Attending university wasn't for the likes of the Orr family. Worse still, it would mean leaving Win behind - and Win wanted Deborah with her at all times, rather like she wanted her arm with her at all times. But while she managed to escape, Deborah's severing from her family was only superficial. She continued to travel back to Motherwell, fantasizing about the day that Win might come to accept her as good enough. Though of course it was never meant to be.

Motherwell is a sharp, candid and often humorous memoir about the long shadow that can be cast when the core relationship in your life compromises every effort you make to become an individual. It is about what we inherit - the good and the very bad - and how a deeper understanding of the place and people you have come from can bring you towards redemption.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Scotland, Feminism, Book Club, Autobiography

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 23, 2020

Reviews

[Gemma Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really needed to read this book. And I knew it from the moment I’d heard about it. I pre-ordered it so it arrived on launch day - yesterday - and I’ve just spent the better part of both today and last night devouring it.

It’s a memoir. By a journalist - who sadly passed away last year, meaning her words have been published posthumously - who grew up in the Scottish town of Motherwell.

The book touches on class, on individualism, on moving away (both mentally and physically) from a small Scottish town. It dives into narcissism, motherhood, family, pride, shame.

I read it and felt so defensive at times, so narcissistic at times, so sad at times, and yet so joyful throughout.

It was like when someone is saying something resonant and you can just FEEL the agreement and acknowledgement and YESMETOO pulsing through you so hard that all you can do is enthusiastically nod and smile and YEPYEPYEP, cheering them on as they go.

My life has been both so different and so similar than Orr’s; mine far less traumatic. And it was like reading my own thoughts at times; my own shameful thoughts as well as ones that I’m proud of. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so affected by a book.

I’ve been thinking a lot about class, mobility and home of late, which made it even more of a journey that felt so tied to my current emotions and state of mind.

In short, this book will stay with me forever. I don’t know if it will do that for everyone, mind you. But I whole-heartedly recommend it all the same.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Deborah Orr's journalism was always a pleasure to read, and I enjoyed getting to know her abrasive personality on Twitter in the months before her death. The memoir of her childhood in Motherwell does a great job of evoking the time and the place, from the points system of council housing to the destruction of a town when its industry dies. Much of this was so very familiar to me as a Glaswegian who has visited Motherwell over the decades only ever to watch football, and once for a tattoo convention.

What I struggled with was her returning again and again to cod psychology diagnoses of her family's possible narcissistic tendencies. The family episodes evoked as trauma, all seemed rather inconsequential and unremarkable, and her inability to see things from a perspective other than her own I found frustrating. It is a memoir, and I guess that's the point, but I wanted to speak to her, to hear more, to debate. That is obviously impossible. Maybe that is what is frustrating.

She is touched by her father in his dying days being unaware that he had been loved by others. I suspect she was more like her parents than she realised.

[Kirsty Keddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone who grew up in SW Scotland in a similar time to Deborah will enjoy her evocation of those decades; the schemes; the Craig; school days. And sadly also perhaps recognise the typicality of Deborah’s early experience with men too. These parts of the book were well written.
What I found surprisingly badly written for an award winning journalist was the bad analysis of her family’s and indeed the whole community’s supposed narcissism which she came back to tediously time and again. I don’t think her relationship with her parents was any worse then any one else in that time. None of our parents wanted us to lose our virginity and stop being their wee girl. Her over dramatisation and over-analysis of it all was ridiculous and I can only assume she was subject to the therapists couch rather too much to be able to blame her parents for so much. I am sorry to know that she died shortly after writing this stuff without obviously having worked through those feelings and realising all that Freudian analysis was guff!

[JoJo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can see I am out of step with the general feelings on this book, but to me it was very dull - just another 'look at poor me' outpouring which did nothing to endear me to the author. Hopefully the reading will bring the pleasure to others that seems to be the view of the majority of reviewers as I hate to see effort go unrewarded.

[Lola Keeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In tears by the end, I knew this would be a tough read emotionally but it really did get me. It’s the town I’m from, and there’s so much I recognise even as so much of it changed and keeps changing. The familial stuff was the hardest, as I suspected. The thing about being from somewhere small that doesn’t produce many people like you is that you relate so hard to anyone else who gets out, who writes, who has the same struggles and connections.
Saddest of all is the peace Deborah seemed to have found by the end, only to be robbed of more years to enjoy that peace. This might be the most tearful book review I’ve ever written so sorry if it doesn’t make much sense!

[Jo_Scho_Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Motherwell is the late Deborah Orr’s memoir to her past; her childhood, her roots and her family relationships are all covered at length within these pages. It’s a compelling read, one that really made ne think. There were many parallels with my own upbringing, as a child growing up in the 70s I winced and laughed at many of her recollections and I empathised hugely with her relationships with her parents. She brought John and Win to life so vividly that I felt I knew them myself. I could empathise with the people they were - but also empathise with Deborah for being part of the next generation with wholly different idylls and dreams. I guess that means I’m not a narcissist - a term that is referred to endlessly throughout this memoir.

I found it quite heartbreaking that Deborah had struggled with the relationship with her mother for most of her life and at a time when she was finally free of all shackles her life was cruelly cut short.

This is a really powerful yet poignant book, I’ve been meaning to read it for a few years and I’m pleased I finally got round to it. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

[Kris McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked Deborah Orr in life, admired her journalism and was saddened to hear of her death. Similarly, her memoir resonated on many fronts: life in a stagnating, anti-intellectual northern industrial city. The smothering insularity. A mother who is at once supportive and subversive. That said, this didn't quite hit with me as I thought that it would. I understand the baggage that comes with emotionally distant parents, but couldn't help but will Orr to get over it and move on. Likely my fault rather than the book.

[Beth Godmon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed about 50% of this book, as a historian I loved the retrospective look at childhood and adolescence in the 60s and 70s - Deborah Orr paints a vivid portrait of life as a post-war child and the challenges that her parents faced. I also enjoyed learning about her journey through life - I think its always inspiring to hear real stories of strong, successful women brought up in a working-class community - who haven't forgotten their roots.

The only aspect of this memoir that I struggled to sympathise with was Orr's often scathing analysis of her parents and their decisions. Granted, everyone's parents impact upon their life trajectory, regardless of their intention. However, I feel like this memoir took the line of simply blaming the author's problems on her parents, as opposed to analysing to what extent her parents had the agency to control their own childhood and it's effects. I do think this will resonate with some people though, just not with me.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for book group. Hard to tell who Orr disliked most, herself or her parents? Harsh critique of life growing up in the sixties and seventies when the lives of mothers were limited in ways we can barely comprehend today. Win was typical of her era and upbringing, Orr’s memoir was cruel and unsettling.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir, also perhaps revenge? There is a lot of anger here, and rightly so on occasion. What is particularly interesting to me is the number of elements in the behaviour of the people around her in childhood which I recognise in the people around me - perhaps it was all less individual than both she and I have probably thought, and more the product of a particular era (I am the same age, more or less). The ways things were growing up in the 1960s and 1970s is instantly recognisable, even though the place and social status were a bit different for me. The parent-child relationship is a complicated one, but reading this I wondered whether some of the problems experienced by the child might be made worse in the long run by not challenging unreasonable behaviour before it goes on getting worse - especially once you are an adult. The episode in which her parents summon her at 2 a.m. to have a go at her for sleeping with a boyfriend, something which they found out about by going through her handbag and opening and reading a letter which she was going to post to him, is extraordinary - no acknowledgement that they had done anything wrong, or that she was by now an adult and no longer theirs to control. We tiptoe around trying to avoid the trigger subjects that will set off a bigoted rant or some other piece of nastiness, and in the end it doesn't do anyone any good. I was quite shocked at some of the other things which happened to her, too.
This is an interesting and readable book which gave me a lot of food for thought. I didn't feel comfortable with the occasional disguised digs at her ex-husband, but there was less of that than I feared.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an uncorrected proof, in advance of the January 2020 publication, so I can’t say too much. Except to say that this memoir is exceptional. Poignant, beautiful, heartbreaking - even more so since the author’s premature death. I hope her children take some comfort in reading this in their grief - or further down the line - so that they may better know and understand their mother, and their grandparents. It’s tragic and insightful and I didn’t want it to end.

[Catheryne Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The late Deborah Orr’s memoir is full of honesty, grit and an abundance of reflection - both of herself and of the people who comprised her surroundings and those of her family. Orr was born in the 1960s and is therefore a couple of generations ahead of me, so this book actually provided an insight into the generation and cultural attitudes of my own mother, which I didn’t know I needed until now. Motherwell is a candid picture of 20th century working class life, the way money (or lack of) moulds you, and the attitudes of your community define the opportunities you can access. This resonates with me as I’m sure it has with many readers, coming from a de-industrialised city or town which has lost much of its collective identity and leaves little room for academic exploration. Orr’s experience of life as a working class student at a university full of ‘Yah’s’ was only too relatable, currently being in my final year in a similar environment.

At one point in her memoir, Orr reflects upon the feminist movement and the vastness and speed of progression. Having gone into significant detail on the cultural context of gender roles within working class communities, she reminds younger feminists like myself to maintain an awareness of how older generations of feminists have walked through such a different world to the one we now know, so that the achievements we have won in the present day are far more meaningful to those who have known life without them. This was a poignant moment for me as a reader, particularly when reading about some of the many barriers she faced in keeping ahold of her own agency and navigating her education as a girl and young woman.

I believe that the greatest message to gain from Motherwell is that we are undoubtedly all shaped by the immediate world around us. More specifically, we can never undermine the impact of our primary socialising agents (our parents/family) because their words and actions truly do define the course of our lives. For me a great deal of this is found in maturing into adulthood and finally beginning to understand all the ways in which your parents were not perfect, how their own childhood and values affected yours, and how my childhood and values will affect my children’s and so forth.

This memoir is in a sense, an obituary to Deborah Orr and her achievements in the face of great class and gender-based adversity. Every time I saw a mention of Orr’s hopes for her future I sincerely hoped that she had managed to achieve that goal. If Motherwell is anything to go by, she has lived a life well worth celebrating.

[JacquiWine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable memoir.

One of my current aims is to read more memoirs, largely prompted by some critically-acclaimed releases such as Laura Cumming’s On Chapel Sands, a book that made my end-of-year highlights in 2019. Motherwell: A Girlhood is a memoir by the late Deborah Orr, the esteemed Guardian journalist who died from breast cancer last year. Rather than documenting Orr’s career in journalism, Motherwell focuses on the author’s childhood, mostly spanning the period from the mid-1960s through to the 1970s and early ‘80s, a time of significant social change in some regions of the UK. Moreover, the book’s title has a dual meaning, representing both the Scottish town near Glasgow where Orr grew up – Motherwell – and the nature of the relationship between Orr and her mother, Win – the latter prompting the question as to whether Win was able to ‘mother well’ when caring for Deborah and her brother, David.

Ostensibly, this memoir is an exploration of Orr’s fractured relationship with Win, the formidable woman who held the reins of power within the Orr household, much to the frustration of Deborah if not the rest of the family. A series of memories and reflections emerge, several of which are connected to ‘the bureau’ an imposing cabinet housing various objects and documents controlled by Win, a serial hoarder. (It is a highly symbolic object, an heirloom ultimately inherited by Deborah and installed in her London home.)

To read the rest of my review, please visit:

https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...

[Jules · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Realised I was skim reading at 170 pages and gave up. Bit of a misleading blurb - I got the impression this book would consist mainly of Orr’s life after leaving Motherwell and maybe ruminating on her childhood throughout. Instead, we begin with Orr sorting through items after her parents’ deaths (the bureau trope didn’t work for me) and then the first hundred pages or so are a disorganized jumble of details about her great-grandparents and grandparents, prior to Orr even being born (which reminded me of listening to my grandparents telling me about long dead relatives as a child - utterly boring and irrelevant) before finally reaching Orr’s lifetime, which is focusing on young childhood and generic details of life on the scheme at that.

There’s hints of some kind of traumatic relationship with her parents and brother but only really a few benign instances shown (I’m mindful that I’ve got 100-odd pages unread) and some foreshadowing comments of her adult life. Not having any prior knowledge of Orr, I’m not sure if we are supposed to know what she’s alluding to: I’m now aware she was a successful journo in the UK so assume she has a reasonable profile, but I have no point of reference for any of this. The whole book is tangential and lacks structure. Not sure if this is a finished work or if she died while writing it - either way, needs significant editing. Probably people who are specifically interested in Orr, Scotland or more conventional factual biographies would like this - I like my memoir a bit more personal and literary.

[Mark Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deborah Orr was a journalist, the first female editor of Weekend magazine and award winning columnist. She died in 2019 aged 57.

This is her memoir about growing up in the North Lanarkshire town of Motherwell, Scotland. Really insightful, brutally honest and authentic, so very sad. Some highlights:

1.) Motherwell was famous for its steel production and like many industrial towns gave a sense of belonging and identity. Consequently, as industry disappeared so too did the aforementioned, leaving isolation. It's akin to worlds falling apart.
2.) Of industrial decline, 'the heritage industry moves in when people don't know who they are anymore and have to focus on who they were instead'.
3.) Orr's transparent recollections of her mother's narcissism and how they haunted her up until her death are tragic. Narcissists - everybody knows one, and everybody IS one to some degree.
4.) Shame is an emotion often confused with pride. It's a largely undiscovered or unresearched human emotion that's so damaging and difficult to deal with.
5.) Her toxic relationship with her mother reveals how a lot of people dismiss their own traumatic experiences because they consider them too small and trivial, and also because of the 'others go through a lot worse' narrative. It doesn't make your experience any less valid or traumatic.
6.) Doing your best to minimise your own needs in favour of someone else's was one of the burdens of her being loved and having a family.

Highly recommend!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. Deborah Orr was one of the columns I always turned to in the Guardian as an insightful journalist and I was looking forward to reading her account of growing up in Scotland around the same time I did.

There are good bits in this book. The accounts of living in those times when heavy industry was at its peak, with most of the town employed or supported by it in some shape or form, through the destruction of that in Scotland and, well almost everywhere else, by the Tory government lead by Margaret Thatcher were recognisable. Leaving home to go to University was a big thing then when so few people went. Young women were routinely sexually harassed and simultaneously roundly condemned for being “easy”. Parents, born in the aftermath of the second world war, had of relationships with food, born out of rationing and also held opinions about black people and gay people that are appalling. Deborah’s parents and so did almost everyone else. These are recognisable themes and it was good to read about these from a Scottish perspective written by a talented writer.

But..... The constant reference to everyone who is not Deborah as being narcissistic was just so wearing. Nothing is ever her fault and she is never to blame. I kept hoping it would stop but from about 20% of the book onwards, the same stuff keeps on and on. Her mother prefers her brother. Her father worships her but her mother gets in the way. Her brother had it easy because he’s a boy (that’s probably true). She lied, stole, took drugs, had abortions but it was all someone else’s fault. Everyone else she meets is a narcissist but self reflection is a rare beast in this book. And that’s a real shame. I wanted to like it but the psychobabble just got in the way. And I wanted to know what it was like to be married to Will Self. But now I never will.

[Roberta Collyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading about a really dysfunctional family relationship dynamic on the train home from one of the worst family events i’ve ever attended was quite comforting

[Catherine Fleet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I was born a couple of years before Deborah Orr, and while we grew up in different home nations, there are some uncanny similarities in our early years upbringing. We both went through our childhood with adequate but limited family means, and attitudinal comparisons between our parents are really strong in a lot of areas. Some of the anecdotal writing resonates so very clearly with me that I can hear the words being said by her mother emanating from my mum’s mouth too. The book captures so much of what I remember from those times: small memories that she depicts triggered similar recollections in me, sometimes tiny things that happened when I was very young that, it seems, weren’t exclusive to my upbringing even though they appeared so at the time.

The book is beautifully written, its style reflective rather than purely narrative. It’s clear the author needed to write it to come to terms with the relationships she had in her childhood and to compartmentalise experiences that she’d gone through, both good and not so good. The analysis that was the result of this process was apparently both cathartic and essential, and I applaud her honesty and determination to confront issues that might otherwise have stayed suppressed. The book is powerful, gripping and raw, it’s funny in places, and at times very moving. I loved every page.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“I didn’t know, until recently, that denying another person their own feelings is the foundation of all emotional abuse.”

Declining industry, rape, bullying, narcissistic parents and a succession of truly awful men don’t normally make for the most happy and upbeat of memoirs, but there we go. This is a far more coherent and satisfying memoir than her ex-husband’s which came out last year.

Orr examines her deeply complicated relationship with her prickly mother and stoical father. Her descriptions of working class life growing up in Motherwell are so well told and she never shies away from the darker elements, giving us a fully fleshed out account of the many hardships she encountered and how she dealt with them.

There is plenty of wisdom and insight here and Orr reaches some really compelling conclusions about motivations and roles people play with specific emphasis on Karpman’s drama triangle, which was certainly illuminating. This reminded me very much of Kerry Hudson’s “Lowborn” and also covers similar social and psychological terrain as Andrew O’Hagan’s “The Missing” and Damian Barr’s “Maggie and Me”.

[Imke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very difficult to rate memoirs.
I thought the structure and much of the writing was messy.
This felt very much like a work in progress, which I guess shouldn't always be considered a bad thing. People are works in progress, and Deborah Orr obviously was very much so.
Sad she passed away, I don't think she even saw the publication day.

[Schopflin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually put off reading this as I thought it might be a bit brutal. It pulls no punches and is very honest but it's also very funny and full of affection. A really insightful depiction of family dynamics with a whole lot of other stuff - social history, geography even nature writing - thrown in. Just tragic that there won't be any more books.

[Eloise Mcallister · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, but I think the blurb made it sound like quite a different book.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dull and repetitive. Deborah Orr had a v interesting life yet randomly chose to focus her memoir on the most boring phase of it (does anyone have an interesting childhood I ask?? Except for like the Von Trapp kiddies??) Improved in the second half but by then I was PMSing so felt too grumpy to care

[Freya Pigott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paints a really vivid picture of growing up working class in Motherwell, edgy relationships with parents, gender and grief (and the way they all intertwine). A bit too heavy handed with the word 'narcissist' by the end so it lost a star !

[Katedurie50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many respects I liked this a lot. As a good memoir should, it describes with bleak honesty and reflective understanding the joys, miseries and privacies of childhood, and the deep ambiguity of her relationship with her parents. Their contradictions are laid bare; her father was - to her- a working class hero, a steelworker who was made redundant when Ravenscraig was closed, and who, like her mother, voted twice for Margaret Thatcher, and was anti-Labour, anti union, homophobic and racist (at least till shortly before his death). Her mother shared with him a fear that their daughter would leave (as she did), would outgrow them (do we ever outgrow our parents?) and would find herself with people who would not understand her (St Andrews University filled this role.) To try to control her they read all her letters in and out. It's painful; the childhood sections are more joyful - wandering in the woods despite the Bad Men there, or the school where there was effectively a grammar school tucked inside a Comprehensive. And for the flavour of the period, there's always the Vesta curry.
But somewhere along the line, Orr must have had a therapist who taught her all about narcissism. This is introduced so often I became irritated, much preferring her own reflections without this frame.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Motherwell’, Deborah Orr’s memoir of her formative years in this town and her later escape to university and beyond, is a searing, honest and incredibly moving account of a child of the 60s and teenager of the 70s. Many of the political references and domestic detail cast me back to my own, albeit different, youth and, for these details alone, this may well be a fascinating read for our children’s generation as well. How they might wonder at our naivety, our pleasure over the most basic of toys, the knowledge that we had to make our own entertainment day in, day out!
But this is not an account seen through the haze of rose-tinted spectacles. Deborah Orr wipes away any nostalgic miasma firmly and effectively. Instead, the lens are polished ferociously and her troubled relationship with her family laid bare. However, neither is this a misery memoir in the expected sense. Orr is loved by her parents; they encourage her in her interests and are proud of her academic achievements – as long as they fit in with their world view. She is to stay at home, keeping her mother company until she marries and has a family of her own. Many younger readers will be amazed that this Victorian attitude prevailed into the 1980s. However, it was not so unusual, particularly for working families living in close-knit communities, many of whom had scant opportunity for change.
Whilst it is hard to stomach the everyday little cruelties dealt Orr as she began to fashion a life for herself, it is really uplifting to read how she slowly manages to become an independent woman involved in work that she loves. It is even more incredible to see her quest for the truth as she re-visits the parenting she received, and its effect on her and her brother, her parents’ relationship, and why her own relationships were so often toxic. Much of this is explored through her understanding of narcissism which leads on to her argument for its prevalence in the West.
This is an engrossing and thought-provoking read: moving, shocking, funny and uplifting. What a tragedy that they are amongst her final words in print.
My thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

[Paula Glancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving and all very familiar of growing up in working class Lanarkshire, but at times I found Orr’s writing of her relationship with her mum and her mum’s narcissistic qualities difficult to read in one go, quite heavy going.

Her description of the choice to move away from Motherwell for uni being unusual also rings true, as does her experience of feeling alien as a Scottish person with a ‘thick’ accent in a ‘Scottish Uni’ - felt very true of my time in Edinburgh.

Did make me want to go home and go a walk down the Duchess Park

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for the Blackwells book group. This is a harsh account of Deborah Orr’s childhood in Motherwell.
The family bureau offered up an interesting insight into her childhood from the selection of items that had been retained by her parents. But she alternated between acknowledging the love and support she was given by her parents, then was fiercely critical of them. I also felt the sections on narcissism were repetitive.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This absolutely brilliant memoir about home, family, being a woman explores perfectly the complex web of experiences and relationships that make up our lives. I don't read much non-fiction but when I do I really enjoy it. I'm gutted I didn't get to discuss this at the book club Claire is running! Nevertheless I'm so glad I came across it through the book club!

[Electric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, touching, tragic - the story of a woman caught in a contradictory, toxic relationship with her parents - who are caught in a contradictory, toxic relationship with the values of post-war Britain. Also a portrait of a time before Thatcher and a tale of how class is reproduced in the nuclear family - and of the always pretty toxic masculine. Very well written. I had never heard of Deborah Orr before and in the end, I almost cried when I found out she died before this was published. This was given to me by a friend who likened this book to Didier Erebon. He was wrong - this has much more emotional impact.