Fracture

Matthew Parris

Allen & Unwin

Otago Daily Times, March 27th 2021

Matthew Parris has a theory that catastrophic childhood trauma can unleash extraordinary qualities – greatness, originality, exceptional creativity, genius – in those who experience it.

In Fracture, he describes the early years and subsequent successes of thirty-one remarkable individuals ranging from Marie Curie and Lincoln to Tupak and Wittgenstein in an attempt to support this hypothesis

The stories are divided into five sections based on the type of trauma his subjects experienced: Affliction (physical and mental); Isolation and dislocation; Chaos and family dysfunction, Cruelty, oppression and prejudice; Shock (ruin, death or suicide). These are followed by brief chapters exploring the theme of trouble transcended in children’s literature, fable, and religion, followed by an overview of scientific attempts to define, quantify, and explain genius.

That the mould-breaking characteristics we associate with greatness can be triggered by a shattered upbringing is an intriguing idea, but one for which it is difficult to prove the counterfactual. How many potential geniuses have been snuffed out by such misfortunes, for example, and how many children have gone on to achieve greatness despite rather than because of their traumatic history? What about those who grew up in ordinary circumstances – Sir Terry Pratchett, as far as I know, had an unremarkable childhood – or whose greatness is the result of good fortune rather than bad? (A category Parris purposely excludes from his analysis). In his introduction, Parris describes feeling surprised by how many guests on his Great Lives radio series championed individuals with difficult childhoods. But maybe this is not so much because trauma sparks genius than these are the stories we like to tell? Tales of triumphant underdogs, troubled geniuses, and those who excel despite the odds are much more interesting, entertaining, and inspirational than those of people whose success is ‘handed to them on a plate’.

That said, the potted biographies in the book make fascinating reading. I may not be convinced that being abandoned by his father and forcibly separated from his mother made John Lennon a musical genius, but it is certainly reflected in his songs and contributed to his emotional, moral, and philosophical development. And in others, the connection between childhood experiences and later achievements is considerably clearer. It is easy to see how Napoleon’s audacity and ability to think outside the box would have been honed by being the only Corsican child in a highly patriotic French military academy, for example, or how the execution of Alexander Lenin spurred young Vladimir Ilyich to champion the political ideals for which his brother died.

A cynic might describe this book as an aging broadcaster’s attempt to cash in at the end of his career. Parris calls his ideas “a flash of insight, a glimpse of unexpected connections, a hunch about causation.” Whether one agrees with its premise or not, Fracture is sure to provoke many an interesting conversation.