A touching and unusual memoir

Susannah Walker’s book The Life of Stuff is a memoir of her mother. When her mother becomes ill the author has to go into her home for the first time in years and discovers that it is full of stuff – her mother is a hoarder. She knew that her mother had this tendency but she had not close contact with her for many years and when her mother dies she finds herself responsible for a house, in poor repair, stacked to the rafters with things that she has to look at and remove.

Many of the items that the tidy-up reveals are personal to the author’s mother and to the family so we are told their story through the things which are discovered. Some of the items, however, are inexplicable and the author has to come to terms with her mother’s mental illness. She learns about what causes people to hoard, what their belongings signify to them, and how our mental health and social services deal with people with this behaviour. She finds herself embarrassed on behalf of her mother and very frequently frustrated with the process.

This is a very honest account of a fractured family. It is also very revealing about this manifestation of mental illness and may well cause the reader to re-examine their own relationship to the stuff in their lives. The author picks out a few items which have been horded to use as a framework for her story and I thought that this worked well. I found this book very moving and a most unusual memoir.