My Mother Laughs

by Chantal Ackerman

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Brian Alarcon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of writing as an aimless stroll shows up in My Mother Laughs by her way of writing as if she was talking to herself. Mostly by the plain spoken nature of the language, we see how Akerman's narrator talks to herself; for example, not needing too much explanation about a situation because she already knows these events, but the reason for saying them is because she is thinking them through for herself. When you speak to yourself you don't use big words, you jump in time, you hyper focus on details, etc. All of which Akerman is doing with the writing.

It was interesting how in the second half of the book it became less about her mother and her illness and more about Akerman and her partners, friends, career, etc. At some point I even thought the mother had died (around when she first mentioned that C. had hit her) and that she had just brushed over the fact. But then around 5 pages later the mother came back, and I realized I was wrong. But that moment had me thinking about how the writing is so semantically jumbled, like when you're telling a very long story to someone you are comfortable with so you allow yourself to go on tangents and comment on things/ emotions in a way that doesn't "move the story forward." I never got the impression that Akerman was interested in "moving the story forward" except for the few moments that she personally was going crazy over, like her mother's illness at the beginning, or her break up with C. later on. Overall I'd be afraid to say that the story is not concerned with time, but there was definitely a movement of time forward, especially if you held on to the details of the things that she pained over, like her getting hit, hiding her black eye from her sister, then her mother, then the TSA agents, etc. Instead the time of the story worked more in service of Akerman's wandering mind, and her preoccupations.

[Ronan Twomey Friedlander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Rachel my love for putting me onto this.

Beautiful and concise.

Chantel doesn’t need to say much to move you.

I believed every word. It read like a series of my own memories. Life just happens and then it disappears, and it’s usually only when we look back do we realise it’s been happening.