Betsy Cornwell was only 25 when she published her first in a string of acclaimed YA (young adult) fantasy novels. The most recent – Reader, I Murdered Him – is a Wide Sargasso Sea-style twist on the life of Adele Varens, the vacuous ward of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
In Cornwell’s feminist reconstruction, the now 37-year-old author rescued Adele from bimboesque burdenhood and transformed her into a brave teenage vigilante who metes out revenge on abusive male partners.
Cornwell’s latest offering – a memoir that’s unputdownable, extraordinarily moving, exquisitely written and socially revolutionary – is another rescue story, this time true, of how she saved herself, not once but twice: first from her childhood in the United States marred by sexual abuse; and then, after putting the Atlantic Ocean between herself and her homeland by moving to Co Galway in her early 20s, from an abusive adult relationship.
Ring of Salt is one of those rare gems: a survivor story that is not only redemptive and inspirational – a lifeline of hope, a handbook of resilience, for readers who have gone or are going through any kind of sustained trauma or life-threatening hardship or crisis – but also a memoir that’s as beautiful as it is courageous.
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I’d read Ring of Salt again for the lyricism of its language. This brings Cornwell’s personal story into the realm of literary memoir. It’s an example from this genre whose writing is humble and unaffected, and thus radically inclusive, alongside being poetic, evocative and deeply layered with meaning, partly because of its formal use of the structure and symbolism we find in the fairytale tradition Cornwell loves.
In her column in this newspaper, the writer Sarah Moss has discussed society’s need for a literature of care. This is by default a female literature, because caregiving is still predominantly women’s work. Ring of Salt is suffused with the supportive, practical kindness of networks of women. As Cornwell so vividly illustrates, single parents are often so beset trying to keep a roof over their children’s heads and multiple other wolves from the door that it can be next to impossible to find space for sleep, rest and recovery from overwork, never mind for creative expression.
Yet society needs to hear about the lives of beleaguered caregivers; and, if we are to transform into a culture where compassionate, interdependent co-operation is the norm, we need to emulate, at mass scale, the caring support networks that currently operate largely underground, with nothing like the State backing they merit.
It’s to Betsy Cornwell’s enormous credit, and to the credit of the grassroots crowdfunding community that has backed her, that together they’ve succeeded in making Cornwell’s dream of finding secure housing for her child and herself – after domestic abuse, homelessness and exhausting financial strain – in a beautiful building in the magical landscape of Connemara, which, as well as being their home, doubles up as a creativity and rest retreat for single-parent caregivers, with childcare provided. Cornwell’s safe-at-last home and single parents’ sanctuary are combined in a building with a fascinating history, aptly called The Old Knitting Factory.
Whether or not – and how – Cornwell’s vision would become a reality is one of this memoir’s page-turning plots. The author’s narrative skill drives the story unrelentingly forward. She can drop sentences that have the power to emotionally wind the reader or flood our minds with beauty. Communicating her own and others’ stories from the downtrodden margins of traumatic experience – caused by various systems of oppression, immigration adversities, poverty, homelessness, domestic abuse, caregiver overwork – Ring of Salt nevertheless glows with what we need: the loving kindness of care, nurturing and people helping one another.
Ring of Salt regularly quotes from the author’s journal. Here Cornwell lets a handknitted shawl, a gift from an online supporter, become a symbol:
“I want writing to be a warm and open, gentle thing, like knitting a shawl. One ordinary word-stitch at a time. I can work on it a little or a lot. I can do it while I’m doing other things. While I am mothering.
“I want to read and see art by people who don’t always have a room of their own.
“All the things good writing is not supposed to be – loose, open, warm, soft, gentle, sentimental, personal, intimate, domestic, minor, incidental, broken, small, fat, familiar, comfortable, not-brave, shy, vulnerable, boundary-having – all the things non-male writers are not supposed to be if we want to be taken seriously.
“The shawl says someone cares enough to send a stranger a gentle touch. God that is all I want my art to be.”
This is a gentle touch of a book, and we should be grateful that Cornwell has sent it into the world.
