Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival
Summary (from the publisher): In this brave and beautiful memoir, written with the raw honesty and devastating openness of The Glass Castle and The Liar’s Club, a woman chronicles how her marriage devolved from a love story into a shocking tale of abuse—examining the tenderness and violence entwined in the relationship, why she endured years of physical and emotional pain, and how she eventually broke free.
"You made me hit you in the face," he said mournfully. "Now everyone is going to know." "I know," I said. "I’m sorry."
Kelly Sundberg’s husband, Caleb, was a funny, warm, supportive man and a wonderful father to their little boy Reed. He was also vengeful and violent. But Sundberg did not know that when she fell in love, and for years told herself he would get better. It took a decade for her to ultimately accept that the partnership she desired could not work with such a broken man. In her remarkable book, she offers an intimate record of the joys and terrors that accompanied her long, difficult awakening, and presents a haunting, heartbreaking glimpse into why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.
To understand herself and her violent marriage, Sundberg looks to her childhood in Salmon, a small, isolated mountain community known as the most redneck town in Idaho. Like her marriage, Salmon is a place of deep contradictions, where Mormon ranchers and hippie back-to-landers live side-by-side; a place of magical beauty riven by secret brutality; a place that takes pride in its individualism and rugged self-sufficiency, yet is beholden to church and communal standards at all costs.
Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary, and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation as she gradually rejects the painful reality of her violent life at the hands of the man who is supposed to cherish her, begins to accept responsibility for herself, and learns to believe that she deserves better.
"You made me hit you in the face," he said mournfully. "Now everyone is going to know." "I know," I said. "I’m sorry."
Kelly Sundberg’s husband, Caleb, was a funny, warm, supportive man and a wonderful father to their little boy Reed. He was also vengeful and violent. But Sundberg did not know that when she fell in love, and for years told herself he would get better. It took a decade for her to ultimately accept that the partnership she desired could not work with such a broken man. In her remarkable book, she offers an intimate record of the joys and terrors that accompanied her long, difficult awakening, and presents a haunting, heartbreaking glimpse into why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.
To understand herself and her violent marriage, Sundberg looks to her childhood in Salmon, a small, isolated mountain community known as the most redneck town in Idaho. Like her marriage, Salmon is a place of deep contradictions, where Mormon ranchers and hippie back-to-landers live side-by-side; a place of magical beauty riven by secret brutality; a place that takes pride in its individualism and rugged self-sufficiency, yet is beholden to church and communal standards at all costs.
Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary, and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation as she gradually rejects the painful reality of her violent life at the hands of the man who is supposed to cherish her, begins to accept responsibility for herself, and learns to believe that she deserves better.
Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.
This memoir details the author's marriage to a man full of contradictions. Caleb was a loving father and very hands' on around the house. Yet he could also fly into rages and grow violent towards his wife Kelly. In this account, in candid prose, she describes the years' long process of working to fix her marriage, laying blame on herself when the cycle continued, and ultimately her conclusion that she could not save her marriage in the face of such abuse. In addition to detailing her marriage, Sundberg reflects on her childhood in rural Idaho and her relationship with her parents to try to understand both herself and her violent marriage.
It's hard for me to imagine the courage it took to write this story and to share the most vulnerable parts of her past. The author does a remarkable job of presenting a measured and fair depiction of her husband, detailing both his flaws but also his wonderful attributes, when it would have been easy and even justifiable to demonize him for his abuse. In presenting both sides of her husband's personality, Sundberg also provides real insight into the cycle of domestic abuse and why so many women end up staying in abusive relationships for years. The author also does a great job of detailing how her own low self esteem contributed to the continuation of the abuse: "I thought I wasn't the greatest catch myself. Hadn't I been breaking things too? Hadn't I gotten hysterical at a slight disappointment by my best friend? I had never felt more inadequate in my life, less worthy of love" (152).
In some ways, Sundberg seems to come down harder on her parents in this memoir than on her abusive husband. She is thoughtful in trying to rationalize Caleb's abuse and tries for years to fix their relationship. Her relationship with her parents is also imperfect; filled with resentment and anger on her part for failings of her parents. Yet despite her parents near constant support to Kelly as an adult, it is remarks from her parents that seem to wound the author the most deeply and are repeated like a refrain in the concluding pages of the book: the line "When my father told me he 'just didn't know what to believe'" (234) is repeated over and over, so that the reader can sense how her fathers' words haunt the author. It can't have been easy for her parents' to see this go to print.
Due to the deeply personal nature of this story, I suspect it was a difficult one to write. I commend the author on her candid depiction of her life and what it's like to experience and survive abuse, which has value both to other victims but also for those seeking to understand that experience. But more than just about her abusive relationship, this book was her life story, her journey to becoming a mother and a writer, and an independent person capable of claiming what she wants out of her life and providing a safe and loving home for her son.
Stars: 3.5
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