Cycle of abuse
What would you do if the perfect life you built was threatened by the very past you wanted to run away from? Would you succumb to it or fight back to protect it? Chelsea Bieker’s Madwoman is the story of Clove, who is faced with this exact question.
After spending years and thousands of dollars on organic smoothies and supplements, Clove has built the perfect dream life. Her thousands of Instagram followers see her perfectly curated life with her kind, reliable husband, her adorable kids, and a nice family home. To her followers, Clove has it all. But one day a letter arrives from a women’s prison in California, and it threatens to expose Clove’s past and her dark secrets, which she has desperately tried to hide. No matter how much she ignores it, Clove can no longer run from her own abusive childhood and must confront the day that defined her life forever.
Even though the premise promises a thrilling ride, the story on the whole is about violence. It tells you what it’s like to grow up in a family where abuse sits at the head of the table. We see Clove’s childhood and how her parents’ toxic relationship shaped her psyche and ambitions. Chelsea Bieker expertly peels off layers of Clove’s and her parents’ relationships to expose the deep-rooted violence that bonds them for life.
Domestic violence is a topic often explored in media and seldom does a work of art do it with the tenderness that it requires. Establishing the right perspective becomes absolutely necessary. Chelsea Bieker does that right on the first page.
Her narrative skillfully deglamourises the violence of love while still showcasing the complex nature of abusive relationships. As we see Clove trying to understand why her mother doesn’t leave this relationship instead of letting her be tormented in brutality, she also comes to realise that beneath all that violence, there is a tiny smidge of love, which is enough to act as an anchor and give hope that one-day things will be better.
Chelsea Bieker’s prose is compulsive and forces the reader to flip the pages to find out more. Utterly raw and honest, she creates moments of vulnerability where the characters latch onto readers’ hearts. She deftly portrays the guilt that comes with leaving the cycle of abuse and the struggle for healing from immense pain. Exploring themes of motherhood, Bieker opens the book with the statement, “The world is not made for mothers. Yet mothers made the world.”
The writer has done a marvellous job at writing an edge-of-your-seat narrative that also pulses loudly with all the emotions of a tortured heart trying to heal.