In Sarah Moss’s recent memoir, My Good Bright Wolf, a recurring theme explores the concept of worthiness and its impact on her life. As the author reflects towards the end of her book on the challenges of writing about her long-term unsettled relationship with food and fitness, she questions the value of her experience given her privileged upbringing marked by ballet lessons, private schooling, homeownership, and stable employment.
In this often stark and occasionally brilliant record of her life, the quest for worth and fear of unworthiness takes a myriad of forms. This is a belief often instilled during early childhood by parents who wrongly equate strength of will with ethical fibre. Their own frustrations, grudges, and biases led to a consistent discontentment with the behaviour and needs of their eldest offspring.
She carries the inherited sense of disgrace into multiple aspects of her life: her interaction with her body, nutrition, academic work, siblings, friends, and later, her university studies – her attempt to shed what she perceives as her toxic femininity leads her to view great literature derived from male authors.
Moss’s love for reading and her academic journey ultimately allows her to discern the error of this notion. Still, her memoir divulges the persisting doubt and insecurity, as despite her ensuing vivid and brutal account of her legitimate childhood adversities, the author continually interjects that her story is either made-up or self-imposed – or distressingly, a combination of both on her more difficult days.
In a predictably glum yet exceptionally brilliant personal history, My Good Bright Wolf offers a profound insight into the life of Sarah Moss.
“The deep-seated feeling of inherent unworthiness is a defining feature of anorexia; a cunning and persistent disease where nothing seems perfect, echoing its many paradoxes. Unanticipated for an author who has received nominations for the Women’s, Ondaatje, and Wellcome Prizes among other distinctions, Moss eloquently illustrates the complexities of the disease and the perpetual internal struggle within her anxious mind.
Interspersed within the autobiography are insightful essays on novels such as Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, Jane Eyre, The Bell Jar, and the diaries of Dorothy Wordsworth. The erudite prowess of Moss illuminates these sections, providing a reprieve from the challenging personal memories. “Well-written fiction carries paradoxical narratives, unintentionally compels us to interpret despite apparent intentions,” she observes, reflecting her own writing style in My Good Bright Wolf.
Innovative elements of the narration include a switch, just past midway, from the constraining second-person perspective recounting childhood memories to a detached third-person viewpoint detailing a recent relapse leading to a hospitalisation in a Dublin-based acute medical ward. This section serves as a powerful interlude, invigorating the narrative with tension, lucidity, and speed. It paints a vivid image of a sharp woman grappling with her mind amid the hardships of a hospital understaffed in the pandemic.
Nearing her admission, after a prolonged period of over-exercising and self-starvation had put her heart at a severe risk, she communicates her plight to her general health practitioner in an email, capturing insanity in words: “I apologise for troubling you but if I delay even a moment I may not perceive this as an issue.” The strength of this denial resonates again later when, barely able to walk, she still manages to bike to the emergency department “as the thought of seeking an alternate mode of transportation didn’t cross her mind.”
The contents of her experiences afterwards expose the poor state of public healthcare for those suffering from eating disorders in Ireland. In the end, she was aided by her relationships and by having the privilege of accessing therapy through private means. She is starkly aware of her privilege as a white woman of the middle-class background. This privilege may seem justified in her case, but overall there seems to be an underlying notion of self-importance often associated with her privilege mentioned in the book that appears uncomfortably close to the disease itself.
In a traditional memoir, the last part of My Good Bright Wolf may have switched to a first-person narrative, highlighting the author’s journey to recovery and her reintegration into her daily life. However, she switches back to the second person, which feels appropriate. There are no quick fixes or conclusive endings here, but rather a delicate exposition of how the ailment impacted her at different points in her life. New duties as a mother. A failed stay in Italy. A travel-writing assignment where “a single bite suffices to describe taste and texture”. A deeply touching trek in the Alps alongside her husband and children, during which her unhealthy fixation with water symbolises much more.
Near the closing page of the book, one of her close friends mentions the futility of trying to communicate with her when she’s ill, stating that it’s like “trying to converse in your third language where only the most simple and urgent matter can be addressed”. My Good Bright Wolf would certainly be hailed as courageous, deserving and intense, as it should be. But beyond that, it represents a meticulous endeavour by a talented writer to narrate her story in the only way she can.