
Motherhood nurture & violence
- these are the themes of Elske Rahill's remarkable first collection In White Ink Rahill brings to life the psychological & physical reality of mothering pregnancy & childbirth in ways that few others writers have attempted Here is a biting realism in the relations between men & women & in the expectations & failures of their assigned roles Each story is illumined by moments of harsh poetry They are carefully crafted snapshots of our condition In the title story an isolated young mother is locked in to a custody battle with her abusive husband; ' Right to Reply' shows three generations of women confronting the terrible legacy of their family's past; in ' Toby' a woman obsessed with hygiene finally snaps when she finds her home is infested with fleas The precision of Rahill's prose the stoicism of her unflinching narrative gaze reveal characters caught up in violently emotional situations The version of motherhood found here is painful Yet its endurance as nature's greatest force is brilliantly & compassionately rendered