A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
“This is a female text.”
A Ghost in the Throat is an achingly beautiful account of a young mother’s journey of self-discovery through the voice of a woman whose words awoke a yearning inside of her. The narrator’s story begins when she was in college, suffering with suicidal ideations and lack of purpose. Her life begins to irrevocably alter following the encounter of the poem “Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire,” written by Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill (please forgive my lack of proper letters in those names, I cannot figure out how to add the accents on my English keyboard!). She becomes obsessed with uncovering everything she can regarding this long dead poet and her life. The pieces of her life that she manages to reveal are her relationships to the men in her life. A powerful quote regarding this; “How swiftly the academic gaze places her in a masculine shadow, as though she could only be of interest as a satellite to male lives.” As the narrator states this, she becomes even more determined to free Eibhlin from the confines of the male perspective. She connects to the poet so strongly, feeling as though she has been able to extract the essence of the poet’s life as a woman, as a mother. She treats the poem with such reverence, such respect for the immaculate prose that the author bled into it.
As a woman reading this novel (I listened to the audio book version, beautifully narrated by Siobhan McSweeney), I found myself gripped by the rawness of the relayed experience of womanhood. Though I have yet to have children, the extraordinary descriptions of motherhood were especially moving. The female experience is undeniably different than the male experience, a difference that is emphasized and elaborated on throughout the book. The difference is spiritual, a sense of Self and connection to other women that men cannot experience. While men cannot know innately, I think it is important to teach them the truths of what they do not and will never know. This is a novel of grief and pain, but also of hope and peace.
The visceral experience of carrying a little soul within your body, of creating life that is of you in a way that nothing else is, is incredibly potent. What a blessing it is, what a hardship, what a beauty. Such a connection cannot be fully understood by any man, it is a complete binding of souls. The author describes the intense labours of a mother which never really ends, just changes. Ni Ghriofa says in her novel, “In choosing to carry a pregnancy, a woman gives of her body with a selflessness so ordinary that it goes unnoticed, even by herself.” This sentence is the perfect description of the view of motherhood. There has been a great disservice to women, in which pregnancy is not seen or treated as a miracle. It is simply a thing that is. Women have been doing it forever, and the experience has been belittled to not a big deal. Ni Ghriofa clearly communicates the intricacies of pregnancy and birth, the hardships and the sacrifices. I am grateful to the author for publishing such an account, to be able to read and consider the implications of her words is a blessing.
The novel combines and defies many genres, creating a category of its own. A blend of auto-fiction and biography of the poet, with deep insights into the female experience in so many different roles. This is a highly important read; a beautiful, feminist work of the refusal to be erased. Please read this, and reflect on how it changed you (because it will change you).