Review of Secret Storms by Julie Mannix von Zerneck and Kathy Hatfield

This joint memoir is testament to the pain and heartache experienced by women who relinquish their babies at birth, regardless of how their lives unfold afterwards. Julie Mannix von Zerneck was born to a highly original couple, her father being a fire-eater and sword swallower, and her mother a radio actress. Their home was often filled with carnival people in the early days, and exotic animals. Her parents travelled widely and wrote books about their experiences, which was both fascinating and alienating for their children left behind.

But she begins the book with a disturbing chapter set in the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, where she has been placed because her parents view her as suicidal after she took three sleeping pills. She is also pregnant, and her mother wants her to have an abortion, but this is not Julie’s choice. The chapters describing her time in the ward, which is the entirety of her pregnancy, include graphic descriptions of her fellow patients, “Mafia Whore”, “The DuPont Executive’s Wife”, the “Zombies”, and Theresa. Although at first they seem terrifying and mysterious to her, she soon comes to regard them with affection; “Mafia Whore”, a loud and intimidating woman with a startlingly foul vocabulary, becomes protective of the mother-to-be.

 

Review continued at Maggie Ball's website, The Compulsive Reader.

Jigsaw Part Two

So making a bag out of a piece of vinyl was a cinch. But he wouldn’t let Alice watch while he did it, which was unusual, as he normally taught her how to make things as he went. No matter how much she pleaded with him, he would not give in.

  “No, Alice. Just this once, I want to keep my methods a secret.”

So her father went into his shed and didn’t emerge until he had finished.

  Alice loved her new bag anyway. It was shiny and black and had lots of room for all her books, her purse, hairbrush, sanitary pads and period painkillers, a notebook and pens, and lip balm. Then there was still room enough for lunch and a drink bottle.

  One thing puzzled her and that was the pocket inside. There was a tiny lock on it.

  “What is this for, Dad?”

  “Never you mind.”

  She frowned at him.

  “What do you mean? It’s my bag, and I can’t know what this pocket is for? That’s silly.”

  “One day you’ll know. Not yet.”

  “Come on, Dad. Tell me what it’s for. Come on.”

She proceeded to tickle him. But he gave her the slip and ran into the garden, round the vege patch, skipped over Rufus the Papa Great Dane, and shut himself in the shed.

Jigsaw

A long time ago, Alice’s father was a man who made things. He could make anything at all. Give him wool and he knitted a jumper or crocheted a rug. Give him fabric and he sewed you a pair of trousers or a dress. Food he could weave magic spells with, and create luscious fantasies, even with brussel sprouts and broad beans, which Alice spat out when she was young enough to know better. He made tiny cupboards with old bits of wood, huge bookcases with fallen tree trunks, grew vegetables of every type and raised Great Danes.