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A Flat Place: Moving Through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma
Top of the pile
80
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
73/100Critics
88/100Scholars
Author:
Noreen Masud
Publisher:
Melville House
Date:
June 6, 2023
Noreen Masud suffers from complex post-traumatic stress disorder: the product of a profoundly disrupted and unstable childhood. It flattens her emotions, blanks out parts of her memory, and colours her world with anxiety. Undertaking a pilgrimage around Britain's flatlands, seeking solace and belonging, she weaves her impressions of the natural world with poetry, folklore and history, and with recollections of her own early life.
What The Reviewers Say
Readers who have voyeuristically come to expect detailed revelations made for Instagram may find themselves bored by Masud’s hazy retelling, but she is doing something vital by selectively withholding intimate recollections of the violence she experienced.
By the end of this sorrowful, tender, sometimes beautiful book, it becomes apparent that it is not those mythic Lahore fields that Masud has been trying to find, but rather a terrestrial analogue for her own sense of desolation..
A Flat Place is a slim volume, but that belies its expansive scope.
The complexities of Masud’s highly controlled and abusive childhood are brought into focus from the start but skews dwelling on it, choosing instead to highlight what came after. Her sharp words and mind cut through the chaff of what commonly bloats memoirs.
