Tatler girl who survived the childhood from hell
The Consequences Of Love Gavanndra Hodge Michael Joseph €20.30 ★★★★★
Gavanndra Hodge appears to be the standard, posh, glossy-mag girl: a blonde Cambridge graduate who grew up in West London and became deputy editor of Tatler.
The reality is one that she reveals to few: she’s the daughter of an alcoholic mother and a drug dealer. As a child she inhabited the chaos of her parents’ addiction, staying up late to make sure her dad’s junkie clients didn’t set themselves on fire and clearing up their detritus afterwards; being shoved into the bathroom with bags of drugs while police banged on the door. Her mother, a mess herself at that stage, left her to it.
This is shocking enough, but the book begins with something worse: witnessing the sudden death of her nineyear-old sister, Candy, from a rare virus while they were on holiday in Tunisia.
Chapters flash back to her childhood and teenage years from the vantage point of her outwardly successful, middle-aged self – a glamorous journalist in a secure marriage with two young children. ‘How can I tell people who I am?’ she asks.
She often drinks herself sick, has a fractured relationship with her mother, and can’t remember anything about her sister apart from the moment of her death. It’s when she is asked by her editor to interview a psychotherapist specialising in grief that Hodge realises she needs to confront the tragedy of her own life.
Her father, Gavin, dominates the story. At once monstrous and hilarious, he’s a demonic figure who greets her friends with ‘So, ladies, who wants a line?’ and has sex with some of them. (Her parents’ split when her mother discovers one of these affairs.) Their relationship is complex and disturbing but also loving.
It’s a vivid and entertaining memoir, a hand plunged into the dark hole of grief. While much of what emerges is hard to look at, she also uncovers surprising treasures – most importantly, strength, resilience and love.
Kate Finnigan