Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Crying Is Something You Do Alone


Ever since (but not before) the establishment of Roman Law, the institution of the family has been considered an exception. First in the Empire, then in the Church and its successor governments, what went on in the family stayed in the family. The paterfamilias was its absolute emperor, its members were his possessions, and he was insulated from external scrutiny and judgment. If anything is, this principle of family is the foundation of Western civilisation.

Although the edges of this tradition have been worn down over the centuries, its residue is still visible in presumptions of male dominance, inhibitions against state interference in domestic life, the widespread exemption of parents from charges of assault against each other and their children, and in the oft quoted ‘sanctity’ of the nuclear family unit among conservative politicians. The family is special.

It’s difficult to disagree with the claim that the family is indeed special. It is the oven in which we all are cooked. But the presumption of privacy we give to the family neglects the fact that it is the de facto locus of almost all evil in the world. What goes on behind the closed doors in modern cities and suburbs is, far more frequently than we’d like to admit, a primary cause of short-term suffering and longer term criminality.

Alan Davies memoir is an example of the hidden misery which we all know exists but can’t bear to admit occurs as a matter of course. It has become obvious in recent years that every other important institution, from the Church to the Boy Scouts, to corporate business, to democratic politics at every level is corrupt. Not corrupt as an exception but as a rule. None has withstood scrutiny. The family is likely no different.

Davies father was a paedophile. His extended family maintained a façade of middle class respectability which prevented even the death of his mother much less the possibility of his father’s perversion to be revealed. Davies was effectively isolated and tortured for years as a consequence. Even into middle age it wasn’t possible to discuss his father’s ‘eccentricities’ with his siblings or other relatives. His family was a hothouse of malignant secrets. Who’s to say most aren’t?

To survive such familial horror is not a victory. As Davies notes so plaintively about the legacy of families, “This is the true inheritance tax of life. Behaviours and habits, ingrained, your own but not your own, a duty on your existence, a tariff to be levied on those who try to love you.” Everyone continues to pay the price, likely for generations to come. This is the empirical residue of family life: “You are dead but the secrets can continue. As if it is the secrets that sustain these fucking people.” Families are where you do you’re crying alone.

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