Review: Under the Orange Blossoms by Cindy Benezra

An emotionally vulnerable, authentic memoir about enduring horrific childhood trauma and learning how to cope and survive, Cindy Benezra’s Under the Orange Blossoms is a testament to human strength and the power of positivity.

When living with her mother and sister in Spain at age 17, author Benezra started having frightening, visceral nightmares about being sexually abused by her father when she was younger. Uncovering these painful memories lead her down a difficult path of emotional strife, suicidal ideation, dissociative episodes, reckless daredevil behavior, and withdrawal from friends and family, all while her parents’ problematic relationship lingered off and on in the background.

This harrowing but sensitively written book follows Benezra’s life story and struggles, from coping with an unfaithful spouse and getting divorced, to dealing with living in poverty and navigating the severe illnesses of both parents and children. She confronts her father about the abuse again and again, rarely receiving a satisfying answer or apology for his actions. Eventually, she does land in a healthy place of healing and forgiveness, after many years of therapy and contention, and the text concludes with a fantastic list of helpful recommended techniques for managing life with trauma.

One of the most interesting aspects of Under the Orange Blossoms is Benezra’s prose style. The text is often non-linear, jumping back and forth from the present moment to past abusive memories as they occur, which is a brilliant way of illustrating how trauma works – depicting the manner in which certain triggers can cause invasive memories to reappear, as if the person is literally living the experience all over again. In a similar vein, Benezra narrates her story in the first-person present tense, so the reader feels very up close and personal with her emotional and mental state as events occur, in real time.

On the other hand, this tense choice can cause some issues regarding the author’s perspective, but Benezra navigates this issue well. Generally, memoirs tend to operate with a voice of innocence in conversation with a voice of experience; in other words, the author recounts past events, and then offers their perspective in the present, from a position of distance. However, the triggers and flashbacks associated with post-traumatic stress provide no such boundaries between time and place, creating a fascinating narrative quandary that Benezra continuously wrestles with throughout the text.

Perhaps the most raw, complicated, and impressive passages of this memoir are when Benezra is struggling to maintain a relationship with her father in her adult life. How will her romantic partners react to her past history of child abuse? How can she ever trust her father around her own children? As her dad ages and starts to need more assistance, should she be expected to take care of him? Would it be better for her to cut him out of her life entirely? These questions are so hard and so painful, and she is clear that there are no easy answers, which is exactly what makes Under the Orange Blossoms such a powerful and important read.

While Benezra’s story is no doubt distressing, her perseverance is equally inspiring, for a uniquely crafted memoir that deserves a wide readership.