No Contact: Writers on Estrangement

The choice to go “no contact” with family, particularly with one’s parents, unfairly engenders criticism despite the “liberation and peace” that can result, critic Bartoy observes in the introduction to this ruminative and frequently disquieting essay collection. Twenty years ago, “I cut ties with my father at twenty-five,” she writes, noting that even though “my suicidal ideation... stopped [and] the world looked a little brighter,” both pop psychology articles and professional therapists at the time encouraged adult children to rekindle broken relationships with parents. (“Hint: I was the problem.”) The 32 contributors all strive to fight back against that still common advice, revealing harrowing family dysfunction that made cutting the cord a matter of survival. They include shattering stories of physical and sexual abuse, but also subtler torments, including parental narcissism and dehumanizing treatment. In “Stranger,” Tiffany Aldrich MacBain recaps growing up with a “charming” father who “took pains to humiliate and expose me [and] enjoyed my distress and confusion.” In “Can’t You Read?” Anna Qu recollects meeting an aunt she never knew she had, whose existence feels “taboo, invisible,” more like a “servant” than a daughter, a trajectory that Qu disconcertingly realizes she is also on before leaving home. Though the essays can sometimes lean too far into lyricism and mosaic, they are still grippingly vulnerable. For those who feel guilt after disengaging from family, this offers powerful absolution. (Apr.)