I received an Advance Listening Copy of this book thanks to the publisher and to Libro.fm
I spent the first part of this book trying to figure out if I was situated in the real world. And then I relaxed and decided it didn’t really matter and from there I enjoyed the book even more.
Every week Suzanna goes up the hill to visit her mother. Her mother lives in a women’s prison and has since Suzanna was a very small baby. Her crime has resulted in a life sentence; she has lived in the prison for as long as Suzanna can remember and will live there for the rest of her life. We meet Suzanna at about 9-years-old. At this time she is living with her maternal grandparents and her grandfather takes her to the prison every week, though he will not see his daughter. Her grandmother refuses to visit at all. Suzanna vows that she will always return to the Hill, will never stop visiting.
This vow becomes harder to keep when her grandfather dies. Her grandmother is a detached guardian, not seeming to care much if Suzanna goes to school or has a proper meal. Suzanna grows up surrounded by her grandmother’s friends, brought together by their former ties to the Communist Party. These women alternating between wanting to help Suzanna and wanting to shield her.
Suzanna does continue to visit her mother in the prison on the hill and we see their relationship continue as Suzanna grows older. Time passes at the prison, other women come and go, guards change. We see her mother in a kind of stasis, always in the same place, the world of the prison around her more real to her than the world in which Suzanna dwells.
The surrealism of this book comes from the contrast between Suzanna’s life outside of the prison and in it and the fact that both are equally real to her. In a very real way, the prison is a type of home for Suzanna, a solid place that she returns to over and over again. But this is also a story of motherhood and the disruption of families. Suzanna’s mother can never truly parent her when she is in prison. Suzanna is orphaned, in a way, and then orphaned again by her grandmother’s increasing detachment.
We learn also more about Suzanna’s mother’s and grandmother’s history, the connection and divide between them and some of the choices that the grandmother herself made when she was a young mother. This isn’t a story for those readers who are looking for a lot of action or even a strong plot to carry you through. This is a book about relationships and it is those relationships that are compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found the ending quite satisfying but I can also see that this might not be for every reader.
Karissa Reads Books 