Looking at the Consequences of Child Abuse
The Wooden Chair tells the story of Leini, a young girl who suffers from a progressive condition that causes vision problems in one eye. Her mother Mira does not physically abuse her, but she’s neglectful and outright cruel at times.
Mira convinces Leini to agree to a risky surgery that eventually causes her to become totally blind in one eye by saying that she’ll love her daughter if she’s beautiful once more.
After the failed surgery, Leini becomes depressed and must deal with bullying from her classmates. Her kind grandfather eventually finds a surgeon who can correct the cosmetic damage to the eye, but Leini is eager to flee from home as soon as possible to build her own life.
When Leini leaves Helsinki to study at Geneva University, she falls in love, gets married, and becomes a mother herself. Her determination to set a good example for her children leads to her reexamine past hurts and seek answers as to why her father, uncle, and other family members never stuck up for her went they saw Mira mistreating her.
The Wooden Chair offers an interesting perspective regarding the long term effects of child abuse, although it’s hard to read at times simply because it covers 50 years of Leini’s life and starts when she’s just four years old. It’s a lot of detail to process, some of which seems irrelevant to the main story.
Despite this small flaw, I’d recommend the book to anyone who finds themselves struggling to forgive a parent for past hurts.
The Wooden Chair won the Royal Palm Literary Award for mainstream literature in the 2005 Florida Writers Association’s competition.
Author Rayne E. Golay is a certified drug and alcohol counselor who says her work with addicts has offered valuable insight into the long-term consequences of child abuse. She has a Masters in Psychology and hopes that this story inspires witnesses to speak up on behalf of any children in their lives who they suspect are being abused or neglected.
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