As a child, Jo tried to survive, the best way she could, her mother’s illness, alcoholism and suicide; her father’s emotional absence; and the loss of her much older sister when that sibling left home. As a young woman, Jo’s interactions with Maddy, despite their loving relationship, trigger the fear of being emotionally dependent on her lover and of being vulnerable to the potential loss inherent in an intimate relationship. It is that fear that, subsequently, leads to her ‘disappearance’.
Excerpt
The light from the garden is trapped inside the glass. Jo watches the refracted light as it spins, as the spray of transparent liquid curves outwards and back. She’s already traced its path. She won’t have to duck for this one ... The thing is Jo doesn’t know, not fully, why her mother has hurled the glass at her. And it is the not knowing that makes her a bad daughter. A bad daughter who precipitates her mother’s bad moods. Bad girl. I’m a bad girl, she reprimands herself silently.
Professional Reviews
Love and Pain/Pain Through Love
In Far from Maddy, C.C. Saint-Clair displays her keen ability to recall how it feels to be a child, a young woman, a young lesbian. She conveys her recollections and imaginings through her skilful use of language and imagery, which vividly evoke feelings and memories from childhood. Many of us relate to the feeling of powerlessness that we experienced as children, and which still can be triggered by current interactions, particularly those with intimate others.
C.C. Saint-Clair’s usual poetic language contrasts starkly with the parental violence it describes; deepening the threat of that anger, making the child’s pain and bewilderment unbearable.
Once again woven throughout this gritty tale is the leitmotif of this ‘thinking woman’s lesbian romance’ writer: her erotic, subtle and sensuous language of desire, lust and love between women.
F.T. Johnson
Unusually Tender
“A distinctive voice … unusually poetic for lesbian grunge.
Though I usually prefer characters who are a bit more highbrow, I fell in love with Saint-Clair’s two, young protagonists: Maddy, achingly at a loss to understand why her lover has dropped out of sight, and Jo who needs to find self-love before she can ever be any good for herself, for Maddy, for anyone.
Far From Maddy is a sheer delight.” Veronika Clayton
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