Growing Up in a Very Dysfunctional Family
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*****
This book opens with a twenty-six-year-old woman, C.C., marrying into a very wealthy family. The first sentence tells us this in shorthand when it describes a harp in the family’s living room that belonged to Marie Antoinette. It’s a misleading opening because it gives the impression that the author is going to talk about wealth when the opposite is true.
C.C. is the younger of two daughters born to Mary Kay and Calvis Borkoski. Her father chose her name in honor of his favorite whiskey, Canadian Club. The sister is more traditionally named, Lorraine. The family is from Adena, Ohio, where Cal owned a car dealership that recently burned to the ground. Rumor had it that Cal might have started the fire, but perhaps not because there seems to be insurance money that allows the family to move to Loxahatchee, Florida and to build a home there. At the time of the move, the girls are seven and nine-years-old.
In Florida, Cal works for a variety of car dealers, getting fired or quitting regularly. Mary Kay did not work because Cal did not want her to.
There were troubles for the family in Florida. Some due to Cal’s drinking and playing around. Some due to Lorraine not making friends easily and having frequent flareups of emotion where she would “lose her shit.” As C.C. put it, “Out of the myriad differences between Lorraine and me, this was the biggest one: I dodged the draft. She went to war.”
In response to Lorraine’s behavior, Cal would work more and come home less while Mary Kay moved between placating Lorraine and equally losing her shit. Ultimately, Lorraine leaves Florida and returns to her aunts in Ohio. This seemingly sets Mary Kay into a downward spiral. And then the whole family starts going down the drain as well.
After lots of promiscuity on Mary Kay’s part, jail sentences for many of them, bankruptcy, and homelessness, we reach the end of the book. Though both of her parents have done her wrong repeatedly and horridly, C.C. is completely estranged from her mother and completely in love with her dad.
It is a very sad story made even more sad by the fact that it seems to be autobiographical. Three separate sources give us information on the real-life Cal, Lorraine, and Mary Kay.
In June of 2023, the author wrote a guest essay for the New York Times. It is called, “My Father Taught Me the Benefits of Delusion.” The opening lines of the piece are, “In 2015, at the height of my father’s homelessness, he took me on vacation. By ‘height,’ I mean shelters were a thing of the past. He was living on the street and didn’t have a car, so we took mine.”
Evidently, this behavior was part of his pattern. The author says, “The first thing Dad did when he got fired or quit was to take us on a family vacation. They were never planned. He would walk in the door carrying his box of personal belongings from the dealership, and the next thing we knew, we were off.”
She calls this life philosophy “adaptive delusion” and proudly claims to have inherited it.
In an interview with Feminist Book Club the author tells us that Lorraine’s character was based on her sister who was “a loveable, beautiful little girl who had real challenges and then some awful things happened to her…She didn’t have the therapeutic support she needed, and she [paid] the price.”
And in an interview with the Palm Beach ArtsPaper we learn about the mom. Well, not exactly. We learn that there is one verboten subject for Beth Raymer, talking about her mother.
After reading the book and reading these sources, I am confused between the real and the fictional characters.
But let’s get back to the novel where we do learn a teeny bit about C.C.’s marriage to the very-wealthy-man and where we have to wonder if their union stands much of a chance because of their different backgrounds.
Indeed, we have to wonder if C.C. stands much of a chance because of her background.
Which – getting confused again – makes me worry about Beth Raymer.
In the end, the same way that I rooted for C.C. in the novel is the way that I am rooting for the author now.
*****
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*****
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