As a kid, Margot Talbot often got locked out of the house by her mother, ostensibly to “teach her to enjoy outside.” This is far from the peak of abuse and neglect the youthful girl suffered. Her father taught her how to fifty percent fill a Coke can with rum as they sat in the auto together, so he could a lot more easily drink and drive undetected. Lifetime went downhill from there, right up until Talbot realized to climb great heights both equally physically and metaphorically. All That Glitters recounts a changeover from tormented youngster to offended adult to enlightened athlete.
Currently, Talbot is a qualified alpine ice climber who also will work with at-chance youth and addictions courses, in addition to jogging a psychological-overall health consultancy. In her debut work of non-fiction, she outlines the origins of her personal information of each individual of individuals subject areas. While the guide contains occasional pacing missteps, it’s elevated by apparent, immediate prose and a willingness to unflinchingly confront her psychological stumbles and falls.
Talbot’s father is a trouble drinker from a troubled loved ones track record, and her mother’s deep chronic depression manifests via times put in hidden from the entire world. An aggressive tomboy increasing up, Talbot inevitably escapes to college, exactly where she health supplements her individual blackout ingesting with dropping acid.
Escape is a recurring topic – she moves from city to city, partaking in myriad misadventures with macho gentlemen. In excess of the study course of the narrative, it becomes clearer to the reader what Talbot is working from: the deep discomfort of her traumatic childhood, some specifics of which had been blocked from her mindful memory. But an instance of jail time for selling cannabis marks a turning place.
This is no easy tale of an regrettable ne’er-do-well reworked by way of the redemptive energy of teetotalling. All That Glitters resists a simplistic framing of medicines as bad, sobriety as excellent. In the course of the tale – which involves a fascinating digression about a romantic connection with a substantial-stage worldwide drug vendor – the author provides a self-knowledgeable interrogation of her possess steps. She seeks a higher understanding, usually reaching out for professional support. But as her experience with ice climbing grows, the inner sustenance it provides diminishes her want for medication and alcoholic beverages. Her journey requires her to the highest peak in Antarctica and back again house again.
Talbot excels when getting the reader together with her from roughneck bars to isolated nature retreats, and she explains the complex particulars of ice climbing in a way that is effortlessly digestible. When drawing insights from her working experience, she falls target to the occasional awkward metaphor, needless due to the fact her tale essentially speaks for by itself. And the tale’s timeline could use a bit of calibration: the aforementioned drug dealer receives a full chapter, but then the romantic relationship she describes as her most critical merits only a few pages.
But these are quibbles viewed in gentle of the author’s accomplishment. She is a charming storyteller and will inspire readers to see that the route to recovery is both of those uphill and hardly ever straightforward.