Consent
Jill Ciment
In Consent, author Jill Ciment reflects on her relationship with her late husband. They got together when she was 17 and he was 47, and stayed together until he passed away in his 90’s.
At the core of the book are the questions:
Does a story’s ending excuse its beginning? […] Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself?
I don’t think it’s a conflict that can be resolved: her and her husband’s long-lasting love was genuine, but he was her teacher and surrogate father figure when they met, which is indisputably icky. Through her writing, she does a good job of expressing her doubts, while also showing that she is ultimately at peace with the relationship.
My favourite parts of the book involve her revisiting her previous memoir, Half a Life, which she published in the midst of their marriage. In that book, she now sees a sort of self-censorship, where she glossed over the uncomfortable truths of how they first met, and made it seem like she had made all of the advances. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like this before, a double-layered memoir, showing in such a literal way how our recollections of the past change over time.
See also: the film May December, which covers some of same themes.
