SURVIVING SOUTHWOOD AVENUE

Simonye dramatizes her grandmother’s harrowing childhood in this debut historical novel.

Columbus, Ohio, 1920: Stella Miller’s mother Clara is prone to unpredictable behavior, on one occasion pulling a pistol on the local druggist when he refuses to offer his products to her “on loan.” Clara abandons the family without explanation when Stella is only 4 years old, though Stella has a faint memory of her mother being forcibly driven off by her father and one of his friends. Stella’s father then sells the family home and moves the children into a dreary boarding house on Southwood Avenue. “The pillars were dirty,” notes Stella. “The house was a dingy gray color with peeling white trim. It looked unwelcoming. When we walked up the steps for the first time, I felt like we were trespassing on someone else’s property.” While their father works, the children are placed in the care of their landlady, Mrs. Spangler, whose cruelty and negligence leads to Stella’s sexual abuse at the hands of the woman’s teenage son. To survive, Stella clings to her siblings—who are sometimes helpful, sometimes not—and tries to grow into a woman more equipped to deal with the world than the tortured Clara was. At its best, the author’s observant prose contains brilliant, psychologically revealing details, as here when Stella’s father stops by to visit them at the boarding house: “I studied his melancholy face while Mrs. Spangler prepared supper. He suddenly looked different to me. He looked smaller. He looked weak for the first time. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed the back of it. He smelled like fresh soap.” The author reveals in the preface that the novel is based on the experiences of her grandmother, and the book sits uncomfortably between biography and fiction, with much of the meandering story related in summary form rather than as dramatized scenes. Simonye includes a section that delves into Clara’s backstory, highlighting some parallels between mother and daughter, but the intense focus on the tragedies in Stella’s life makes for a somewhat grueling reading experience.

An admirable if upsetting account of childhood abuse and resilience.