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With This Author, What You See Is What You Get

Moya Hession-Aiken’s friends said the stories she told about her life were so funny that she should write them down. And so she did.

The result is Shoulder, her recently published memoir that chronicles her growing up in Manchester, what she describes as the toughest housing project in the north of England.

An artist and a first-time author, Hession-Aiken will talk about Shoulder at the Griswold Inn, 36 Main Street, Essex, on Sunday, Sept. 24, at 4:30 pm. The store has requested that those who attend the event buy the book in advance from Goods & Curiosities, the Griswold Inn shop, which will serve as an admission ticket for the program. The book also can be purchased through the store’s website: https://store.griswoldinn.com.

Hession-Aiken, who now lives in Essex, did the usual thing to publicize Shoulder, sending advance copies to reviewers. Then, something unusual happened. One of the most influential book-reviewing publications, Kirkus Reviews, gave the unknown author or an unheralded memoir a notably positive review, calling Shoulder a “moving story of love and loss by a gifted writer.”

Shouldering The Burdens

Shoulder, Hession-Aiken admits, is an unusual title, but one expresses succinctly the story she wants to tell. She shouldered the burdens that were an integral part of her growing up. Aiken recalled the housing estate where she lived as a place about which the most positive adjective she could summon was “crappy.”

“I tell it like it is,” she said.

She sees a connection between her approach as a formalist painter and the writing she has done.

“There is no hidden meaning. It is what it is. What you see is what you get,” she said.

She admits Shoulder has also provided a convenient way to answer questions about what the title of the book is: she doesn’t have to say anything.

“All I have to do is touch my shoulder,” she said.

Hession-Aiken escaped the housing project, graduated from art school in London, and then, fulfilling an ambition, first developed when she watched American movies at the Saturday kiddie show, headed for the United States with a one-way ticket, and her life’s savings, about $350.

Some things worked out; some didn’t. She has made a career as an artist; her son Liam, now 33, has become a successful actor, but her husband, Bill, died of esophageal cancer at the age of 34. She has dedicated her book to him. “I buried my husband, but there is never a day when I don’t think of him,” she said. “I call it the shortest longest marriage.”

Writing And Drawing

The book, in fact, opens with her husband’s funeral. “I was a young widow with a young child trying to figure America out,” she said.

Hession-Aiken wrote for two or three hours every morning and then to reward herself, did something far more familiar: a drawing inspired by what she had written.

She wrote her first draft in a way that few do anymore: longhand. She explained that she did not know how to type but managed, in the end, to acquire enough skill, using a computer program, to produce a typed manuscript.

Shoulder covers the first 32 years of Hession-Aiken’s life. She is planning a second volume to bring the story up to the present. She is now 66 years old.

In addition to Hession-Aiken’s appearance on Sunday, Sept. 24, the Griswold Inn is planning a second author talk on Tuesday, Oct. 24, with Julie Gerstenblatt on her first novel, Daughters of Nantucket.

Joan Paul, co-owner of the Griswold Inn, explained why they had expanded their offerings to include author talks.

“We’ve owned the Griswold Inn for 28 years, and we wanted to do something new,” she said.