Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me

Rennie ist 14 als der alles verändernde Kuss geschieht. Nicht sie selbst ist es, sondern ihre Mutter, Malabar, die Ben, den seit Jahrzehnten besten Freund ihres Gatten, küsst und damit alles aus den Fugen gerät. Die schillernde Frau geht eine Affäre ein und macht ihre Tochter nicht nur zur Mitwisserin, sondern zur Gehilfin, um ihre Treffen mit Ben zu decken, und zu ihrer Vertrauten, die sich alles anhören muss. Rennie hat ein schlechtes Gewissen gegenüber ihrem Stiefvater, aber die Sehnsucht nach der Nähe zur Mutter und deren Aufmerksamkeit, lassen ihr keinen anderen Ausweg. Als das Verhältnis droht aufzufliegen, ist sie zur Stelle, wann auch immer ihre Mutter leidet, spendet sie Trost. Dabei vergisst sie selbst jedoch den show more Abnabelungsprozess, den sie als junge Frau vollziehen sollte und wähnt sich in der Illusion, die geliebte Tochter zu sein. Tatsächlich ist sie nur eins: ein notwendiges Hilfsmittel.

Adrienne Brodeur verarbeitet in ihrem Buch ihre komplizierte Beziehung zur Mutter und schildert, welche drastische Folgen diese toxische Beziehung für sie auch viele Jahre später als eigentlich unabhängige Erwachsene hat. Selbst Kind einer allseits bewunderten, strahlenden Frau, hat Malabar nie gelernt zu lieben oder die Perspektive anderer einzunehmen. Ein Schicksalsschlag in jungen Jahren verhindert letztlich eine bedingungslose Beziehung zu ihren Kindern, die ihrerseits so sehr nach Zuwendung lechzen, dass sie aus diesem fragilen und schädlichen Beziehungsgebilde nicht herauskommen.

Anfangs hat das Geheimnis um das Verhältnis noch spannende und reizvolle Aspekte. Mit der Mutter ein so großes Geheimnis zu teilen, lässt das Mädchen geradezu euphorisch werden und sie deutet dies nicht nur als Vertrauens- sondern als Liebesbeweis. Gerne unterstützt sie das Spiel mit den anderen, unbedarft und nicht berücksichtigend, welche Folgen dies für die beiden anderen Partner haben kann. Doch je älter Rennie wird, desto deutlicher erkennt sie ihre Rolle im Leben ihrer Mutter. Schnell ist sie ersetzbar, ihr eigenes Leben und Leid wird gar nicht wahrgenommen und die psychologische Last, die sie seit Jahren mit sich herumträgt, muss zwangsläufig irgendwann in einer manifesten Erkrankung enden. Was von außen eine völlig klare und nachvollziehbare Entwicklung ist, wird von der Autorin an diesem Punkt nicht erkannt, zu sehr steckt sie fest als dass sie sich lösen und einen Schritt beiseite treten könnte, um einen anderen Blickwinkel zu gewinnen.

Es gelingt Adrienne Brodeur den perfekten Ton zu finden, um nicht verbittert ihre Erfahrungen zu schildern, sondern die verschiedenen Stadien, die sie durchläuft, auch sprachlich widerzuspiegeln. Der lockere, neugierig-heitere Ton begleitet die Anfangsphase, ernstere folgen je älter sie wird, bis schließlich der psychologische Tiefpunkt erreicht wird und sie erkennen muss, was aus ihrem Leben geworden ist. Aus dem naiven Mädchen wird die differenzierter denkende junge Frau und schließlich eine Erwachsene, die sich der unerfreulichen Realität und Erkenntnis stellen muss. So wie sie durch die Literatur sich selbst erkannt hat, kann sicherlich auch ihr literarischer Verarbeitungsprozess andere dazu ermutigen, ihre Beziehungen zu hinterfragen. show less

A schadenfreude soap opera that reminds me of watching Dallas when I was a kid or Tiger King on Netflix last night. Brodeur's mother marries a rich and sickly bookworm and some years down the road has an affair with his vigorous and vibrant best friend. Fourteen-year-old Brodeur is recruited as confidante and accomplice, aiding and abetting the affair's cover-up. Things get even a little more twisted before they get better . . . or at least as good as they're going to get. Outrageous and sad.

Side note: It seems weird for the author to go to the trouble to use pseudonyms for everyone in the book and then basically out them all in the Acknowledgments. What was the point of that? A legal department thing?

In this dramatic memoir, author Adrienne Brodeur tells the story of her enmeshed relationship with her domineering, manipulative mother Malabar. When Adrienne is only fourteen years old, Malabar embarks upon a love affair with the male half of a friendly couple. Malabar makes her teenage daughter her confidante and co-conspirator. Things get even more complicated (if such were possible) when Adrienne falls in love with her mother's lover's adopted son.

Malabar and her lover remind me of this quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other show more people clean up the mess they had made.”

This memoir is a beautifully written testament to the corrupting powers of entitlement and privilege. Well worth reading. show less

This memoir opens with a startling event: the 14 year old narrator's mother bursts into her room to share that she has been kissed by her husband's best friend. That a parent would seek out a young teenager to be her confidante and co-conspirator in adultery shows us what the mother, Malabar, and the daughter, Adrienne (Rennie) are made of. The writing is excellent here - the pacing, the plot, Rennie's description of her own excitement and shame, and her subsequent bout with depression - and it's almost enough to feel that Rennie's complicity is justified. But not Malabar's - she is also the daughter of a horrorshow mother - which still can't vindicate her selfish actions, nor can the divorce of Rennie's parents and the early death of show more their first child. I chose this book because I heard the author at a local reading in Beverly, MA, supporting her wonderful new novel Little Monsters, and you too should read them as a satisfying set. show less

This memoir begins with Mary Oliver's poem about receiving a box of darkness. I think the poem was the perfect beginning to the book. It gives the reader the sense that something dark is coming and the author acknowledges that darkness. But it also portends that there is some resolution in the story.

The story is about a mother, Malabar, who inflicts a horrendous duty on her 14 yo daughter, Adrienne, by making her an intimate to the mother's adulterous affair with her husband's best friend.
The story delivers a salient truth:
It's impossible to go through life without injury...physical, psychic, emotional. The important thing is what you do with that injury. One can work to resolve the issues and learn from them, developing a sense of show more resilience. Or one can draw into oneself and nurse the injuries for a lifetime. I think Malabar and Adrienne demonstrate those two responses.

It would seem that this book would invite a lot of projection on the part of the reader, especially for women with a complicated mother/daughter relationship in their lives.

I was impressed by Adrienne's ability to empathize with her mother. However, the story about her daughter in the epilogue made me wonder if she had perhaps over compensated a bit. show less

Other people's lives are endlessly fascinating, especially the hidden pieces of those lives. One of the reasons we read is to inhabit these lives so very different from ours, at least for a a little time. Adrienne Brodeur's memoir about her glamorous mother Malabar, who entrusts fourteen year old Rennie with the knowledge of Malabar's affair with her husband’s married, best friend, making Rennie both confidante and co-conspirator, and the effects of this knowledge on her life and relationships, offers the reader a life it is impossible to look away from.

Brodeur has written an astonishing memoir of mothers and daughters, dysfunction, complicity, lies, and secrets. She looks back, not only at the obviously inappropriate revelations of show more her mother but also at her own deep desire to be her mother's ally, the favorite, to be special, the one who would aid and abet her mother in this affair despite her love for her stepfather. She presents the reality of her relationship with her mother and her knowledge of this affair as she remembers it, not letting her mother off the hook for her questionable decision to include her young teen in her deception but not letting herself off the hook either for the thrill she felt in safeguarding this knowledge. Her writing is self-reflective and honest. She knows she's writing of rich people behaving badly but she embraces that without apologizing for it.

Without excusing her selfish and toxic behavior, Brodeur tries to convey the magnetism and appeal of her mother but she's not entirely successful. And her own complicity can easily be forgiven when she's a child but the reader will find it harder to understand her loyalty to this secret once she is older and it threatens her own relationship and marriage. This is a perfect book for book clubs who can delve into the very real, even if it reads like fiction, impact Brodeur's mother had on her life and in forming the person, wife, and mother she has grown into being and the rocky journey of self-discovery that got her there. show less

I read Wild Game one weekend where I could delve deep into the story without many distractions. As soon as I was done reading I did a deep Google search on narcissism and found Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Malabar, the mother of Adrienne Brodeur, fits the definition of this disorder to a T. How can a mother in good conscience ask her daughter to help her cover up an affair that she started with her best friend's husband?!!

This story is like a bad car accident: you want to look away from the carnage, but yet you're so fascinated that you can't look away. My heart hurts for Adrienne and the weight of keeping such a huge lie to herself for such a long time. I hope that writing her story was cathartic for her, and that she was able to show more get the closure on this chapter of her life. I can't imagine how hard writing this must've been for her.

Adrienne did an great job writing all the details about the eclectic cuisine that her mother created. This aspect of the story was fascinating and hands down my favorite part of the story.

Wild Game is a heartbreaking narrative with an incomprehensible narcissist, the man she's obsessed with, and the daughter who had no choice but to keep her dirty little secret, losing herself in the process. A tougher read for me, especially since it triggered memories of my own dealings with a promiscuous parent, but I don't regret this weekend read at all. show less