Chapters/Indigo Interview
Truth Through Perspective
May 2000
Going Down Swinging, Billie Livingston's touching first novel of one family's desperation, searches for truth through perspective.
By Rae Ann Fera
I believe in serendipity.
Things present themselves to you at a particular point in time for a reason. And I have just experienced a serendipitous moment.
As I sit staring at a blank computer screen, the sweet and sorrowful sounds of Aimee Mann float through my headphones. At the exact moment I'm struggling to describe the characters in Billie Livingston's debut novel, Going Down Swinging, the words come to me in the form of a song. "It's not going to stop until you wise up."
There is no better way to sum up the life of Eilleen Hoffman, a former schoolteacher and mother of two, who has let her life slip away. Eilleen has deteriorated into an alcoholic, pill-popping, part-time prostitute, struggling to keep her seven-year-old daughter Grace from the hands of the Child Protection Agency.
Eilleen, who inertly watches as her life spirals out of control, is in denial, rejecting the truth of her situation and fighting those who try to help her. "No one ever believes they'll sink so low. So low is someone else's life, someone else's man, someone else's job." So begins the first chapter of Going Down Swinging.
Livingston, who was in foster care as a child, admits that Going Down Swinging is 50 per cent autobiographical, though she is quick to qualify her statement. "There's a lot that wouldn't hold up as truth," she says in defence.
As part of her research Livingston sought access to her childhood CPA case files. Unpredictably perhaps, she was not flooded with painful memories while reading the written account of her childhood. Instead she was angered and frustrated at the inaccuracies. "The thing that was most striking was how many factual errors there were," says Livingston of the case notes. "It was frustrating to look and see that people who were outside of your family had that much control over you."
Instead of putting the frustration aside, Livingston used it as fuel to explore the various 'truths' of her narrative. Going Down Swinging shifts voice from Eileen to Grace, telling the same story from their two different perspectives. At the end of every chapter, Livingston uses government case forms to detail the comments of the social workers called in to check on Grace.
"You really have to decide for yourself whose story is most genuine, where exactly the real story lies, and if that is what is important, or if emotional truth is more important," says Livingston. "Also, a story from an outsider's perspective is a snapshot of what they get when they walk into a room. That's not always exactly accurate."
For Grace and Eilleen, emotional truth is more important than what others see as the real, plain truth. Eilleen believes that her daughter is the lifeline that keeps her head above water. While everyone else has forsaken her - her eldest daughter Charlotte, her husband, her parents, even herself - it is Grace who remains dependent on her and loves her unconditionally.
Grace, on the other hand, believes that her little gifts of "happies" and chocolate cake can cure her mother's depression and regular bouts of alcoholic illness. But, she is also wise enough to know that in order to stay with her mother she must lie to social workers and steal money from her for food.
"I really wanted the story to be as much about perspective as it is about truth, because Grace's story doesn't always jibe with Eilleen's story," says Livingston. No story is complete without more than one side, and even these sometimes contradictory stories help paint the bigger picture.
Despite the disparities in perspective inevitable between a seven-year-old and an adult, it is their common focus on the same truth that keeps them together. Grace and Eilleen love and need each other like no other two human beings on Earth, and will do everything in their power to stay together.
Going Down Swinging is like watching a freight train on a crash course with a mountainside, but Livingston brings a real humanity to Grace and Eilleen, and their story is full of wry and humorous moments. Ultimately it is a touching novel about redemption and a mother's final decision to get a grip on her life in order to survive. Billie Livingstone
So while Aimee Mann warns me, "It's not going to stop until you wise up," Eilleen that it lends a rare outlook - only you can save yourself.
This interview first appeared in May, 2000
