An incredibly solemn book that you need to be in the mood to read.
TW: mention of murder and domestic violence.
Who is Amani Haydar?
If you cast your mind back to March 2015, Amani and her family were regrettably making news headlines when Amani’s mother Salwa was murdered by her father in a brutal attack. Wearily for herself and her siblings, it took over two years for him to be sentenced. In May 2017, Amani’s father was finally charged for stabbing his wife over 30 times, and injuring his daughter Ola, who had attempted to save her mother.
From news headlines to book, the storyline of the The Mother Wound is unfortunately true. Written with incredible intensity, it feels as though you are living through those two years with Amani. Her ability to recollect her feelings and quantify them in words in the way she has done is an incredible skill, and as such this book feels like it has been written at the time it of it occurring. Candidly angry throughout this book, yet also full of sadness, grief, and frustration, Haydar finally has a chance to tell her own story. For many readers, it may be triggering.
Her novel is important in the current climate where laws concerning patterns of coercive control as a crime are being debated in Australia. She reflects upon her dad’s behaviour and treatment of her mother growing up; behaviour that was designed to manipulate, control, and humiliate. At the risk of depersonalising this heart-wrenching book, statistically, as Haydar points out, his patterns of behaviour had been around for quite some time and are a common precursor to domestic homicide.
How does one reconcile that they were so used to being a witness of domestic abuse, and through no fault of their own, was so embedded in, and familiar with this pattern, that it was not examined until it was too late? His behaviour was so “normal” within her household, and within her extended Lebanese family, that she never considered it would escalate to murder.
With a domestic dialogue and a wider culture that normalised and supported some of his behaviours—as she discovers when his family rallies against her—the fact that she could not unlink nationality and gender from her situation are some of the agonising points Haydar makes, through a series of flashbacks dispersed throughout the book.
By drawing upon her experiences in multiple contexts, and by linking present moments with memories from the past, she brings in an insurmountable number of frameworks that need to be challenged. Where does one even begin?
Undeterred, begin she has. Firstly, she is a mother, and ready to teach the next generation. Secondly, as a former lawyer, she is an advocate for women’s health and safety in the Western Suburbs of NSW. In the creative arts, Haydar’s journey started with self-portrait Insert Headline Here, an Archibald Prize finalist, and continues with this purposeful book.
Reviewed by Rebecca Wu
This review is the opinion of the reviewer and not Glam Adelaide.
Distributed by: Pan Macmillan Australia
Released: June 2021
RRP: $34.99
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