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Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling by Gwyneth Lewis is, amongst many things, a story of a specific type of complicated and abusive attachment between a child and her mother. It is also a book about poetry and its potency for making childhood trauma comprehensible. It is funny and often delightful; however, I shall commence this review with a discussion of the book's unmistakable Welshness.
Before all else the book is a memoir about a person growing up in Wales. Be it the culture and people, the poetry, or the language, the Welsh experience is woven into the prose throughout. The landscapes are beautifully rendered—mountainous, if bleak and blighted by weather. Welsh nationalism and cultural preservation are
ever present—she never explicitly states her stance here—implicitly we sense something close to gratitude, the country is acknowledged and thanked for its contributions to the author's life, and whilst environments and its people can be harsh, she knew little else during childhood, and there is some safety in the familiar.
The concept of community is not overly emphasised but faithfully respected as intrinsic to a sense of relational security. We're told that Welsh speakers can identify one another even when conversing in English, inviting potential for a deepening of understanding, intimacy, and allyship between two strangers. There is also complexity in community, as the country's historical tendency for both nationalism and alternately for anglicisation, cultivates ground for internal and external conflict. One senses a historical presence of “divide and rule” imperialism in the subtext of Gwyneth's Welsh experience.
In one scene Gwyneth converses with a fox hunter in their mother tongue. The antisocial details of the illegal activity go unacknowledged by either party. “Why waste time moralising?” she asks the reader, when acceptance, intimacy, and authentic human interaction are awaiting participation. In this way we see a connection with her identity and her