SHOULDER

Aiken tells of dealing with a remarkable amount of pain and joy in her first few decades of life in this memoir.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the Hessions—the author, known as Moya or Mary; “Me-Mum”; and “Me-Dad”—were impoverished Irish Catholics living in a council estate in the north of England—a Protestant enclave where they faced constant hatred and harassment. The author hated school with good reason; she portrays it as a place where sadists and pedophiles abounded. She had a talent for art and passed her O levels at 16; she was accepted to the prestigious Central School of Art and Design in London, where she graduated with honors in textile design. Off she went to America, where she had ups and downs, including close calls with immigration officials due to her undocumented status. In the 1980s, she and a kind man named Bill Aiken—a producer with a relatively new cable network called MTV—fell in love: “Okay,” she sighed to herself after their first real date, “I am going to marry Bill Aiken.” After she became pregnant, they married, and soon baby Liam was born; soon afterward, however, tragedy struck. Aiken is a skilled storyteller, supplying anecdote after anecdote; some are very funny, others are heartbreaking, and still others are infuriating, but all are infused with a sense of defiance. Readers will be struck by the hatred she experienced during her early life in Manchester, which seems to gather like scorpions in a bucket. Aiken lays out all the details of her family’s later troubles in harrowing detail, with hopes dashed time and again. Through it all, the author never lost sight of her own talents or the fact that she was loved by good people who helped her survive.

A moving story of love and loss by a gifted writer.