Book description
'I learned about conflict from my parents.' So begins Christina
McKenna's haunting memoir of her lonely early life. Recounting scenes
from her chlldhood in Ulster, she paints a memorable and poignant
picture of violence and oppression with her brutal father and protective
mother, whose retalliation to her husband's meaness came in the form of
a secret yellow dress. At age eleven, she experiences a frightening
supernatural occurrence, a prolonged haunting that confirms for her the
reality of the spirit world. Though it affects her deeply, she later
learns to channel her confusion into twin artistic passions: poetry and
painting. The discordant nature of Christina McKenna's young life, and
the feelings of inferiority it bred, lead her to examine all the
limiting belief systems she grew up with, and question the validity of
the hidebound Catholicism of her childhood. This is a rite-of-passage
account of two generations of Irish women, told with great humour and
compassion. On the one hand is the writer; on the other the heroic
mother who showed her love as best she could. McKenna concludes that our
past, no matter how painful, need not keep us bound - once we choose
love over hate. That choice, she suggests, will set us free. Christina
McKenna was born in Ireland in 1957. She attended the Belfast College of
Art and the University of Ulster and went on to teach in Spain, Turkey,
Italy, Mexico and her native Ulster. She continues to paint and has
exhibited her work around the world.
