Book Of The Month: Somebody's Daughter
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One evening, when Ashley Ford is routinely preparing dinner for herself and her boyfriend in their shared New York apartment, she receives a phone call from her mother in Indiana: “Your dad is getting out of prison.”
In her nearly 30 years, Ashley had grown accustomed to having a father only from a distance, from a photo, from over a telephone line. His absence was a dull ache that had resided in her chest since her earliest memories, and she had never known anything different. Though his absence haunted her (and none of her older relatives would disclose the reason for his imprisonment), she carried his phantom paternal love like a torch in the dark as she navigated disruptive and unsafe circumstances as a child and young woman.
““When my life was new, I understood in my bones how little it mattered what anybody else was doing, or what they thought about what I was doing. I believed my bones then.” ”
Published in 2021, Somebody’s Daughter is the short but forceful memoir of Ashley Ford. In an unflinchingly and remarkably honest and clear manner, Ford reaches back through time and memory, walking through the mundane and pivotal moments that, together, collectively make up a childhood.
The memoir revolves greatly on the matter and impact of family, home, and a child’s individual relationships with each of her parents. Somebody’s Daughter is also laced with themes of the societal effects of race, emotional abuse, physical abuse and assault, and the discomfiting consequences of hard truths.
Somebody's Daughter
Originally Published: 2021
Pages: 224
Available on: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook
GET YOUR COPY HERE
““When you write about you and me? Just tell the truth. Your truth. Don’t worry about nobody’s feelings, especially not mine. You gotta be tough to tell your truth, but it’s the only thing worth doing next to loving somebody.” ”
Ashley and her younger siblings grew up in a home that was ever changing, ever tottering on a fine line between undeniably strong familial love and bewildering, frightening anger and hurt. Ashley’s mother’s unpredictable and frightening moods dominated the household, and she remembers both the pain and the joy of the unstable environment.
Her father had been incarcerated before she had formed any real memories of his presence. In her mother’s single-parent household, boyfriends came and went and hit her; her grandmother provided an eternal well of comfort and reassurance; her mother alternatively showered her children with love and made them cower under the bed in fear.
Growing up, Ashley internalized the pain—any pain—-and blamed herself for other people’s anger and irrationality, convincing herself that she was bad. With heartbreaking candor, Ford relates a common struggle that many children in single-parent households undergo.
““Though I tended to hold adults to impossible standards, I seemed to have infinite patience for children. Unlike some adults, I never quit remembering what it was like to be one. Their small plights were familiar to me, as were their big feelings.””
As a child, she remembers the confusion of her body’s transition to womanhood, the meaning that it takes on in society, and the consequences and attention this garners. At 13 years old, Ashley is sexually assaulted by a classmate, and she does not speak a word of the horror to anyone. At 14, she discovers the reason for her father’s incarceration: rape. At such a time in life when she was rapidly developing into young adulthood, these two overlapping factors and her unstable home make her question everything she understands about the world.
““She’d lost her voice somewhere down in her chest, somewhere they couldn’t reach in and grab it.” ”
To inherently and desperately crave a father figure, to lean on a memory of a person instead of a real one, to love someone who wasn’t even there or she didn’t even know- all these things circle her mind when growing. Ford’s complicated relationship with her mother showcases a rainbow of emotion; her mother is determined not to let the world hurt her daughter, and yet, she is brutal herself.
The bildungsroman, or coming-of-age, is a genre that is extremely prevalent and ever-growing in size, but Ford’s contribution with Somebody’s Daughter is unique for several reasons.
First, Ford’s crystal-clear young memories will wring a reader’s heart as they read of her imminent fear, broken innocence, and bewilderment at so much incomprehensible anger and hurt directed at her. Ford is able to really capture the feeling and meaning of particular moments that define a child’s sponge-like psyche, and the limited, internal mechanisms that react and internalize external circumstances—thinking something is wrong with them, not the one who did them wrong.
““Kids can always tell the difference between adults who want to empower them, and adults who want to overpower them.” ”
In Somebody’s Daughter, Ford has not lost touch with what it feels like to be a child, the overwhelming inability to understand why people hurt one another, and how on earth she is supposed to act or protect herself or forgive others. She recalls the horrible and the happy, the isolation and betrayal and loneliness, and the discovering of her self-worth for the first time.
Secondly, Somebody’s Daughter is also inspirationally rife with empathy for human error, in both the way Ford recalls those who have done her wrong and her deep understanding that to be human is to be messy. She had seen or experienced some of the worst things a person can—at a young age—and yet still found it within herself to understand others, instead of condemn.
Somebody’s Daughter is a must-read selection for a reader if you enjoy memoirs, bildungsromans, and stories of overcoming difficult circumstances. The book is relatable, inspirational, and illuminating; it hurts to read and you won’t be able to put it down.
““I did not know that there are miles between running out of things to say, and running out of the strength to say them.””
Notes:
Ashley Ford received much attention for her literary debut, the release of her memoir, in 2021 and is said to be “one of the most prominent voices of her generation.” The New York Times bestseller catapulted Ford into the literary spotlight.
For more book selections by Swift, read here.
““Ashley, you’re the only person who has to live in your skin, and wake up with the consequences of your choices. That’s why you can’t let other people make the big choices for you. You have to do what it feels right to do, and you can’t let anybody stop you.” I heard the stifled smile again. “Not even me.””