Book Review: Maggie & Me

Maggie & Me by Damian Barr is the biography of Barr, or at least the focus of his childhood during the Thatcher years in the middle 1980’s as he and his family lived on the outskirts of Glasgow.  However while the adults were hating on Thatcher, Barr saw something else, particularly the moment when she came out of the bombed hotel in Brighton completely unharmed, even though she was the one the bomb was for.

There are moments in the book that could be upsetting to people, so the trigger warnings are for physical and mental abuse.  There is mentions of death, there is disability and slut shaming within the book too, so if any of them might upset you, you might want to avoid the book.  Of course the later part isn’t overly graphic, but the abuse, particularly the mental is consistent within it.

So, Maggie & Me is an interesting look into the life in Scotland through the eyes of an 8 year old boy – at the start of the book – who is living in the years of Margaret Thatcher being Prime Minister of Britain.  While the adults around him, and even the children he goes to school with, name call and talk about how horrible she is, Barr doesn’t really see that.  Instead he sees a woman who is willing to stand by her convictions, a woman who has to fight to be heard in a job that is regarded as that of men.

Of course the book doesn’t just focus on Barr’s appreciation of Thatcher, he talks – through his thoughts as an 8 year old boy – about his life, when his sister comes onto the scene, when his parents separate, his mum’s boyfriend, his dad’s girlfriend and the course of time when he realises that he not like the other boy’s.

In the basic sense, Maggie & Me is a coming of age story, although Barr is incredibly smart, he doesn’t fit in with the other boy’s.  He’s not sporty, he’s easy to cry, he’s seen by the other boy’s as ‘other’, unless the leader of the group stands up for him.

While this is an interesting book, I will admit that… I had a hard time getting into it.  there are no dates to give you an idea that a certain period of time has past and certain chapters left me feeling confused as the start states one thing, but the rest of the chapter states something else.  Until we get to the end.

Notice:

I also got this book from the UK subscription service Queer Book Box – I got the 3 month £10 box – and this is the first book I got from them, currently am liking it, it’s a basic box and you get a bookmark that gives you trigger warnings for the book.  I should also mention that I have paid for this service and the customer service is delightful so far.  So if you are in the UK you might want to give Queer Book Box a look.