Review 33: A Woman on the Edge of Time

A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son Investigates His Trailblazing Mother’s Young Suicide by Jeremy Gavron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While this book is of a very private matter, a man searching to know about his mother who committed suicide when he was 4 years old, there are implications that extend out to the larger world.

Hannah Gavron was only 29 and killed herself with a gas oven, similar to a couple other women writers around that time, and oddly only blocks away from where Sylvia Plath killed herself. Although it isn't brought up in the book, one wonders if she had read about Plath and decided to follow suit.

Hannah also had children, the author was only 4 years old. She was finishing a doctorate degree in sociology and her thesis was turned into a book that was published, hitting the shelves shortly after her death. The book The Captive Wife: Conflicts of Housebound Mothers was significant for women and changing society, particularly in Britain. Perhaps not as well known as the earlier book published by Betty Friedan with The Feminine Mystique, but adding to the conversation of women stuck at home with little to no options with outside work. Perhaps this was why Hannah chose to end her life?

There are many reasons offered in the book, and perhaps it was not one specific, but the combination of them, piling up to where she thought there was no other option. Although there was also the idea put out that it was a ploy that went on too long. Don't want to give anything away, but it was mentioned early that Hannah had been having an affair with a gay man and there had been an argument. Was this the result of that trouble?

As mentioned in the beginning this is a very personal story. The author tells us each step along the way of trying to find out about his mother, and ultimately to understand why she did that last fatal step. At times it feels like an invasion reading this, but clearly the author has put it out there for everyone to read. Jeremy Gavron is a writer, and author of several novels, this is what he does, he writes. It is hard not to feel regret that Jeremy didn't know his mother better and also to feel a sense of loss for everyone. What would she have gone on to do? She was on the cusp of a career that could have done so much more for women.

This is a fascinating book, but ultimately fills you with the sense of loss.