Adele Dumont is a writer, and a critic. Her essays are well-regarded, having been published in prestigious literary journals including Meanjin, Griffith Review, Southerly and more. Her first novel, No Man is an Island, was an account of her experiences teaching English to asylum seekers in detention. But there is one thing about her that this literary history doesn’t tell you. She also has an unusual compulsion: trichotillomania, or the desire to pull out her hair.
For most of her life, she has kept quiet about her compulsion, making efforts to hide it. But in this collection of essays, Dumont tells all about her unusual diagnosis, exploring it in depth – from her early days before it manifested, the intimate details of her hair-pulling sessions, her forays into treatment and secrecy alike and her research into compulsions more broadly.
The thirteen essays making up this collection are each loosely focused on a single subject, one aspect of Adele Dumont’s pulling or on her life in general, and over the course of the book you are taken through each segment of her life, and through her own understanding of her condition. It’s a journey, a candid retelling of her experiences, and a call to consider your own compulsions – and consider the compulsions of others. It’s not only fascinating, if you’re unfamiliar with trichotillomania, but also in its own way a little unnerving.
Towards the end of this essay collection, Adele Dumont confesses that the book has not been easy to write. After so many years of secrecy it is difficult to disclose every aspect of her experiences so openly. Not to mention confronting the fact that strangers can easily discover something she once took such pains to hide. And this collection really does feel like a secret. Despite the title and the blurb speaking it aloud, reading these essays and seeing the writer explain all the little details and thoughts and feelings about her hair-pulling feels like a quiet confession, whispered in your ear. Going over the years she took painstaking efforts to cover up her hair and tidy up after her pulling sessions, it really does feel like she is letting you in on a secret. And now it’s your secret, too.
Because she really does share so many little details about her condition. Rather than just skimming the surface of what exactly trichotillomania is, Dumont delves deep. It’s full of almost-visceral descriptions of her hair-pulling process, of scientific research about her condition and other compulsions, and details of the way it has effected her day-to-day life and relationships. It’s the part of the condition that a dry article about the medical diagnoses won’t show you, but about the way she feels it has become a central part of who she is, the different perspective it affords her, and the attachment she has towards it despite it sounding like such a painful and inconvenient aspect of her life.
It’s a fascinating perspective you don’t often see, on a topic rarely broached. Dumont doesn’t shy away from sharing the uncomfortable parts of trichotillomania, of her life in general, and of the way compulsions such as hers are regarded. She writes with a sincerity and a clarity which makes this collection a compelling, insightful read. While I did find this book a little slow to start, her unique experiences and prose (at times matter-of-fact, at others picturesque, and in many cases both) drove me onwards.
The Pulling is a book you don’t often see. A little strange and unnerving, but in a fashion that makes reading it all the more compelling. It’s an enthralling exploration of why we do the things we do, and one I would recommend to anyone seeking out an insightful and compassionate work of non-fiction.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Pulling by Adele Dumont is available now from Scribe Publications. Grab yourself a copy from Booktopia HERE.
