Let’s talk about class: Four memoirs paint a shocking picture of how society treats the vulnerable

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Reviews: Learning to Think by Tracy King; Newborn by Kerry Hudson; Strong Female Character by Fern Brady and Slum Boy by Juano Diaz

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady tells a similar story of a difficult working-class upbringing, with the added twist of the author’s undiagnosed autism. Photograph: Raphael Neal/PAThe memoir genre can be a mixed bag, ranging from the literary to the celebrity tell-all. There are pitfalls to both. In the former, we’re often presented with a novelistic, omniscient narrator whose powers of recollection stretch credibility.

Gabriel Gárcia Márquez is not the first writer to be ‘betrayed’ in death. The list of literary treachery is longHabitat by Catriona Shine: The edifice of humankind begins to crumble in this zippy allegorical novel All of these events perhaps leave little room for wider reflection on how Hudson’s experiences in the medical setting in Prague and at home speak to more universal experiences of women, and the peace she finds in embracing middle-class life as a middle ground between her working-class background and her partner’s more privileged upbringing, but this is an absorbing and entertaining read.

When King’s older sister Emily is sent by social services to a special school 150 miles away, the family decide on a whim to drive down to collect her. They’re refused access and leave without Emily ever knowing they had come. It’s a tragic picture of a family flailing within a broken system. “My parents and the tall man came back into the room and he explained that if we took Emily it would be kidnapping because my parents didn’t have custody of her anymore.

Brady’s honestly is bracing, as is her delving into the complexities of engaging with online autistic communities, which can be welcoming but also judgmentalby Fern Brady tells a similar story of a difficult working-class upbringing, with the added twist of the author’s undiagnosed autism, and her struggles in a world that refuses to understand her.

Structurally, the book’s plot is glossed in the first chapter and then revisited in more detail in those that follow; this potentially deflates some of the books later discoveries. The repeated comments on people’s physical appearances and intelligence sometimes seem a little off-key in a book that otherwise seeks to challenge stereotypes.

 

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