Seldom do I wander the pages of
someone’s life and so intimately witness what my presence has cost. The privilege
of intimacy is paid for by the writer. The cost can be exacted in currencies of
privacy, friends, family, self-esteem, confidence, courage. How much is the
story of my life worth? Am I willing to pay that price? How to Cook Your
Daughter costs Jessica Hendra her privacy, her relationship with her father,
and hopefully, her guilt. Within the pages of her memoir, Hendra unravels her
life: the motivations behind her bulimia, anorexia, and her often destructive
relationships. Incest expertly knots threads of guilt and shame into a jumble
of insecurity, silence and anger. Writing this book allows Hendra permission to
be angry with her father; and permission to let him go. Finally, Hendra sheds
the vows of secrecy to which she is bound.
That’s not quite true. Hendra’s rape
is not a secret. She tells friends, lovers, and therapists. She confronts her
father on numerous occasions. She does not, however, find the same salvation
Tony claims. Choosing to publish gives Hendra a voice. For Hendra, exposing her
father means winding down the pathways of her past. It’s a rickety ride. But,
it is necessary. According to Hendra, she must publicly confront her father in
order to stand up as a mother. Hendra knows the repercussions: Tony’s denials,
accusations and anger; the public’s intimate knowledge of her; the impact on
her daughters. Still, she does something Tony won’t; she acknowledges he raped
her, and that it is wrong. Writing her memoir takes a courage I wasn’t sure
Hendra possessed. When we meet her, she is still vulnerable despite her roles
as wife and mother. But she summons the courage to publicly challenge his
“confessional” memoir.
Still, I have to ask if after 32
years it was worth it to publicly reveal her rape. And I have to answer, yes.
According to Hendra, she doesn’t reveal the rape to attack her father’s
selective memory. She tells the truth to establish truth in her family; to make
truth the legacy she passes on to her children. She tells the truth because her
father has denied his impact for too long.
It is a noble statement: if I choose
to write a memoir, it will be for my children. I would like to think my memoir
will serve as an entry to what defines me. But maybe not. For my memoir to act
as a framework of my life, I would have to be dead. And to be honest, I would
like to have all of my important conversations with my children the old
fashioned way, while I’m living. I like talking with them, sharing with them,
interacting: the language of parenting. But for when I’m not here, when all
that remains are my words, I would like to leave a memoir. Still, it haunts me
that my words will float without context or interpretation on slender pages
turned by tear soaked –I am dead after all—fingers.
While my children provide a noble
cause, I will have to write my memoir, for me. As a writer, I’m not sure what I
take from Hendra’s work. What I take most from How to Cook Your Daughter is not
as a writer at all: it is as a woman and a mother. Hendra’s childhood reminds
me of the awesome responsibility of motherhood. Through Hendra’s experiences, I
am reminded of the choices we make for those we love: of the obligation to make
choices. I respect Hendra for writing How to Cook your Daughter for her
daughters. I worry, that she could not write this for herself. But because of
her systematic unfolding, because she reveals herself as a character rarely in
charge of her own plot, I understand. While it may take me some time to realize
the writerly benefit of How to Cook Your Daughter, I take what I need from it
one page at a time.
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