Falling in love with fictional characters and trying to find home

Plus the best salad dressing you will ever eat

Jul 31, 2024

Reading

I have a terrible problem where I repeatedly fall in love with fictional characters. I try remind myself they’re not real people, rather the product of someone’s imagination, but then I fall in love with the writer instead. It’s quite an emotional roller coaster every time I open a new book. Sometimes, like this time, I read about the author and learn that parts of their work are based on their own experiences and then there’s no talking me out of the emotional attachment I’ve made - I’m completely hooked.

So it was that I came to feel very strongly for both Sophie Mathieson and her character Clare.

We all arrive at the books we read with our own experience and background that frames our reading experience, and for me this is particularly poignant in stories about dysfunctional families and, in this case, addiction. Without giving away too much of my family experience, let’s just say I came to this book laden with thoughts and feelings. I’ve seen addiction from many angles in real life and in story form. I know that most fiction likes to solve addiction and most self help books profess to be able to do that. Often the truth lies far from a solution and that is one of the things I loved most about this book

Together We Fall Apart tells the story of Clare as she tries to find where she belongs in a family that is held hostage by addiction. She flees her Australia for a woman she falls in love with before even getting to know her, chasing the dopamine high of attention like her brother chases his next dose of heroin. She comes back to Australia when her father dies and the story takes place from there masterfully weaving its way through Clare’s past and current life offering a chance at life with a new perspective.

If you have ever had to deal with addiction in any form you will find a little piece of your heart in this book. If you haven’t you will just love this book for the very human story it tells.

Thinking

Many years ago my husband and I decided we needed to replace our front door. We didn’t like anything about the door we had. Not the design, not the colour, not the style. So we shlepped out to a door shop (who even knew that such a thing existed) and looked for hours at different front doors. Finally we found a door we liked - we took photos and dimensions, got a quote and drove home smug in our decision to order the new door. When we got home we realised the door we had chosen was EXACTLY the same as the door we have - just newer, shinier and cleaner.

Eight years later and we are about to renovate our house (cue some very privileged whinging from me) . On Saturday we spent AN HOUR looking at bathroom taps; sixty minutes is a long time to look at taps and I got bored after about thirty seconds when everything started to look the same. Two days later the lovely man from the bathroom shop sent us an email with images and quotes and dimensions and all those things about mixers I don’t understand. I looked at the image of the tap I had conceded to liking most and it was exactly the tap we have now - just updated.

It makes me wonder if I’m very set in my ways and I like what I like, or if it’s familiarity I find contentment in. Do I see a door/tap in a sea of doors/taps and hone in one the one that looks most like home? I have spent more hours in therapy than I care to admit trying to define what home is and I am left wondering is it just familiarity?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

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