As a recovering people pleaser (lmao not sure how much I’ve recovered), I felt the subplot about Katherine showing up to court for Kitty quite acutely! On page 205, Katherine’s sponsor asks:
“Do you think it might be possible that you avoided learning too much about just what you were being asked to do because you knew it was wrong to begin with? And that just possibly what you were searching for was a genuine reason to be really, truly, thoroughly and completely, at last angry with Kitty, so angry that you’d never feel any pressure to do her a favor ever again?”
What do you think of the way Arthur read Katherine? She, herself, was startled by the suggestion, but did she believe it had a kernel of truth? Have there ever been times when your need to people please has gotten out of hand? Arthur told Katherine she’d “loaned a dollar to a person who has already borrowed two,” which is such an elegant way of describing Katherine’s predicament. What boundaries are reasonable to set with people who keep asking more and more of you? Have you ever had to make a decision to stop helping someone? What happened? And what did it take for you to hold firm to that boundary?
I have to say, this part of the book felt too extreme to me. I understand about people pleasing, and I’ve done my share, but would even an extreme people pleaser not ask more questions of Kitty? I’d be like, “Details, please! More details!”
The older I get the less I’m a pleaser. I was exhausted for a couple years very recently by parents who were truly truly in need; I wasn’t pleasing them, I was doing my duty out of love for them in their last years. Now, if someone wants me to do something and it feels inconvenient and a little unreasonable, I’m just NOPE. And it feels fine.
I still enjoy helping when I can, when it’s someone I like. It needs to feel balanced. That just feels like being a decent human.
When I was fifteen I began to drink obsessively. Holiday billboards advertising rum warned people "Think before you drink." I'd say to myself "I do think before I drink. I think I'd like a bottomless rum and Coke." One of my favorite lines in the novel about Katherine is "She was a child and then she was a drunk." In 12 Step programs people sometimes say that when you quit an addictive behavior, you go back to the age you were when you started. I was thirty-three going on fifteen. People often drink obsessively (or use or eat) because they can't deal with feelings--sadness, loneliness, anger. They don't know how to interact with people. They don't know how to be honest. It's a lot easier to say, "Okay," and "Sure," and "Yes, I'll help." I love Katherine because she's so believable. I love the part about the bad haircuts. So funny and so true. The part about being in jail is also funny--we sense her growing realization that she has far to go. Although she's a people pleaser, she's also very brave--walking into a 12 step meeting for the first time takes a lot of courage. Laverty's novel makes me see how much harder it must have been for a woman to do so 70 years ago.