The Second Child by Regina Toffolo

Author Regina Toffolo excavates the darkest corners of her life in The Second Child, a memoir spanning decades of childhood instability, familial uncertainty, alcoholism, mental illness, and the unexpected challenges of parenting.

Told in a deeply personal yet accessible way, this book explores the warning signs and roots of addiction, as well as the repercussions of grief and loss that can only be unpacked from the distance of age or experience. The recollections are told in a matter-of-fact way, akin to journal entries, but there are also gut-punch moments that feel both voyeuristic and surprisingly relatable. Navigating wide-ranging subjects of addiction, suicide, social anxiety, depression, abuse, heartbreak, recovery and reconciliation, every reader will find some point of powerful connection.

Subtle foreshadowing and careful narrative framing adds a tension to many passages – even seemingly banal descriptions of daily events – as though the author is always hinting at some deeper, more significant meaning. Some of the anecdotes related from her childhood are eerily mirrored in later stories of her own struggles as a mother, and the many secrets she was forced to keep. The book reads something like a mystery in reverse; readers are told that the culprit is generational mental illness and addiction, but how those factors emerge and spread throughout Toffolo’s life is the beating heart of this well-written chronicle.

Some of the recollections are redundant, and some of the most emotionally intense sections feel rushed, for instance the death of her younger brother, but the unpolished nature actually makes the storytelling more authentic. The writing is straightforward and intimate, with a natural ease of someone who has told stories all their life. All in all, this is a gripping, multi-generational tale of silent struggles and unspoken needs, poured out with vulnerable honesty from an impressive voice.