Review of GIRL A by Abigail Dean

4 Stars

This is a psychological family drama which focuses on the effects of shared trauma on the siblings of one family.

When she was fifteen, Lex Gracie escaped and rescued her siblings from the family home where they were held captive and abused.  Fifteen years later, she is a successful New York lawyer who returns to England because her mother, who recently died in prison, made Lex the executor of her estate.  Wanting to change the family house into a community centre, a positive space for children, she has to reconnect with her siblings to solicit their agreement to the project.  The Gracie children were adopted by different people in different regions of the country, and Lex has not seen most of her siblings for years. 

Lex is the narrator.  During her time in England, as she contacts her siblings, she thinks back to the experiences of the seven children raised by a religious fanatic and his wife.  These flashbacks show the physical and psychological abuse to which the children were subjected.  There is not a great deal of detail, though we learn they were given little to eat and were kept bound to their beds.  The vague depiction of abuse means the focus is on how the individual children have coped since their escape.

As would be expected, each sibling has been affected differently by his/her captivity.  Certainly, their ages and the type of (mis)treatment they received have influenced their reactions.  For example, Ethan, the eldest son exploits his past and has become an academic who writes about how education can overcome childhood trauma, Gabriel is the troubled one who is in a psychiatric hospital, and Delilah has found solace in religion.  Lex takes pain to present herself as smart, strong, and resilient, but her detached, controlled tone suggests that she has built protective walls.  Like for her brothers and sisters, there is no real escape from what she endured for years.

Lex has a different relationship with each sibling.  Her relationship with Delilah, for instance, is the most difficult; Delilah was the pretty daughter and she manipulated her father into becoming his favourite.  Ethan is a disappointment because Lex believes that since he was the oldest, he should have been the one to plan an escape; she describes him as having a “deficit of courage, and a good face for sympathy.”  Lex is closest to Evie with whom she shared a room, just as Delilah and Gabriel are close because they shared a bedroom.  The dynamics among the siblings are very realistic, especially when certain information is divulged. 

Lex’s relationship with her mother is also problematic.  She is unable to forgive her mother for not doing anything to help her children.  There is some indication that she was a victim of abuse as well and lived in thrall of her husband.  Delilah, for instance, has some sympathy for their mother, but Lex’s feelings are clearly shown in her decision to relegate her to an unmarked grave in the prison.

Towards the end there are some revelations that may come as a surprise to some readers, but there are actually many clues, especially in the flashbacks.  I found that those revelations only confirmed the suspicions I had formed earlier. 

This is not a light read; it is bleak and offers little hope.  Nonetheless, it is a worthwhile read because it is realistic and thought-provoking.  How would you react to years of abuse and deprivation?