How to write about broken trust in a memoir? Janine Mikosza’s Homesickness maps trauma in bold new ways
- Written by Marina Deller, PhD Candidate, Flinders University
[…] what would it mean if you moved from house to house regularly? What would that do to your idea of yourself? How does it construct or alter the space inside you, your internal floor plan?
I am accustomed to reading difficult things. I affectionately refer to my research as “morbid” and I have indeed read many heartbreaking, dark books.
Despite my familiarity with the subject matter of trauma memoirs, Janine Mikosza’s Homesickness[1] caught me off guard. For want of a less romantic phrase, it swept me off my feet. Her approach to writing trauma while processing trauma is revolutionary.
By revisiting the many homes she lived in during childhood, Mikosza maps the floor-plan of trauma (literally and figuratively) and unearths myriad truths about home, identity and loss.
Review: Homesickness – Janine Mikosza (Ultimo Press).
In an opening passage of Homesickness, Mikosza writes:
I’m afraid of everything, she says […] Nah, that’s a lie, she goes on. I’ve never been scared of driving fast on a gravel road, riding a runaway horse, losing my sense of direction in an unfamiliar city, swimming in an ocean at king tide, helping someone out in a crisis. But the rest of my fear is as real as it was when I was eight years old.
Janine Mikosza.
Ultimo Press
Mikosza guides us through “her” truth, which is not necessarily an easy task. She battles with herself over what she can say, what she really remembers, and what the construction of memory might look like on paper, as opposed to in her mind.
At times, she acknowledges the gaps in her memory and intentionally obscures information. For example, there are rooms in the floor plans without labels, clearly belonging to a person or people whose existence is being avoided.
Mikosza changes names and places, drawing attention to the way these acts of concealment are about protecting herself and others. When she mentions a photograph she doesn’t want to include, she states:
Some things can remain your own and don’t have to be shared.
In crafting her own version of truth, Mikosza both subverts reader expectations and complies with them. She acknowledges that disclosure can (and must) be led by the individual when it comes to traumatic memory. As she writes near the beginning of Homesickness:
we are complex, irrational beings who remember and forget, are filled with contradictions, and get stuck in our own problems. But we also have an incredible ability to transform ourselves. To survive.
Read more:
More than half of Australians will experience trauma, most before they turn 17. We need to talk about it[11]
Sharing the floor plan, mapping the way
I often joke to my nearest and dearest that writing a book about my grief wasn’t therapy, but it sent me to therapy. Mikosza makes this distinction too:
Art is not therapy […] Storytelling’s different from telling your truth.
But she goes on to propose that “together they can transform into something else entirely”.
This transformative relationship between truth and storytelling shines through in Homesickness. Mikosza’s approach is not only brave; it is giving, and vitally important.
I have written previously[12] about how trauma memoirs written by Australian women are “a valuable (and intimate) contribution to the conversation about trauma and sexual abuse”.
Mikosza’s form-bending, exploratory memoir, epitomises this, and will undoubtedly map the way for other writers.
References^ Homesickness (www.ultimopress.com.au)^ describes these kinds of materials as “validating” (www.tandfonline.com)^ visual artist Stephanie Jones (stephaniejones.com.au)^ The Share House Project (www.janinemikosza.com)^ What is complex PTSD and how does it relate to past abuse and trauma? (theconversation.com)^ Phillipe Lejeune has called this the “autobiographical pact” (en.wikipedia.org)^ The Situation and the Story (us.macmillan.com)^ trauma in childhood can change how memories are formed and retained (www.childwelfare.gov)^ alter our sense of time and identity (aeon.co)^ retelling these events can be re-traumatising (www.onlinemswprograms.com)^ More than half of Australians will experience trauma, most before they turn 17. We need to talk about it (theconversation.com)^ written previously (theconversation.com)
