This is a book like no other, despite the sad and all-too-common subject of mental illness and drug overdose. Only a memoir could extract such soul-searching and gut-felt emotions. Yet Holden after and before by Tara McGuire includes fantasy, investigation, meditation, and more, illustrating the struggle of the author who tries to imagine what was going on in Holden’s mind, her 21-year-old son, who died despite his fight to escape the grip of addiction.
As a writer, I enjoyed McGuire’s writing style and the book’s creative structure. As a reader, the story then took me on the same convoluted journey as the author’s search for understanding. As a mother, I felt her understandable need for atonement.
I didn’t expect a new understanding of graffiti: McGuire shows that graffiti was Holden’s way of exteriorizing his incomprehensible pain. Although tagging looks messy to the uninitiated and is a criminal act, it’s an outlet for lost souls who become gifted yet marginal artists. Yes, graffiti is more than defacement, besides humanizing seedy or otherwise deserted places. The author describes the parking lot in East Vancouver, where the Holden Courage [Holden’s last name] Graffiti Jam covers a 20-metre concrete wall. Holden’s closest friends created a background with reproductions of all Holden’s graffiti. This memorial won’t be there forever, but meanwhile, it is a reminder that mental distress needs, if not our tolerance, at least our understanding.
It always pains me to see young, homeless drug-addicts, but there is some selfish comfort in knowing that even the most willing mothers can’t always reach their children’s darkness. Holden knew his mother’s love, yet the pain wouldn’t let itself be soothed. Page 167 resonated with me. McGuire’s journey leads her to accept the concept of reincarnation as a means for education. Having recently lost a son (to cancer), and although McGuire’s journey is different from mine, I found validation: we are ‘here’ to keep learning through life’s experiences until our souls will, in some other dimension, be whole, at last.
This book is more than a mother’s ‘extra-ordinary’ memoir; it enriches the collective testimonials about mental illness.