North East of Eden by Gabor Szabo - REVIEW

Love vs the Court System: A Father’s Memoir

I’m always drawn to memoirs — the raw kind, real life. As an empath, I love seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

This one hit closer than most. So much of it touched a nerve, stirred something buried: the grief, the silence, the sense of being torn between people you love. The trying — sometimes failing — to hold together in the emotional wreckage of a family split wide open.

What I didn’t expect was how deeply it would transport me back to my own childhood. Not just the forced growing-up, the loneliness, the adult problems you’re made to carry before you even understand them — but also something else: the experience of growing up behind the Iron Curtain. Like Gabor, I know what it means to carry the weight of two worlds. And I know what it means when one of them collapses.

This isn’t a tidy book. It’s messy, fractured, full of emotion and contradiction — and that’s exactly why it works. Gabor Szabo doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not, certainly not a saint. He’s a father caught in a nightmare, navigating the British family court system after allegations of abuse. He is cut off from his children. What unfolds is part courtroom drama, part love letter, part howl of anguish from someone slowly being erased.

After completing a Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Program and trying to make amends, Gabor finds himself up against a system that won’t let him move beyond his past. Every step toward healing is met with new obstacles. Every attempt at contact is met with silence — or worse, suspicion.

Meanwhile, his children — once bright, joyful, thriving — begin to fade. Sophie, years ahead academically, slips to average. Sam, once playful and cheeky, grows withdrawn and anxious. Their decline is documented clinically, in reports and statements. But you can feel the ache between the lines. Their emotional world is quietly collapsing. And no one seems to notice.

Reading all this, I was overwhelmed by how familiar it felt. When parents separate — especially in conflict — children often lose more than just a parent. They lose certainty. Clarity. Protection. A childhood that once felt whole. And they learn quickly what not to say.

As a child of divorce myself, I remember the unspoken rules: don’t ask about the parent you’re not with. Don’t express sadness too loudly. Don’t let your grief make anyone uncomfortable. In silence, you grow up. In silence, you harden.

Gabor’s memoir gave voice to that silence. And in doing so, it allowed me to grieve all over again — this time, with understanding.

One of the most heartbreaking threads in the book is the story of his mother. A woman who survived three bouts of cancer, who lived each year with the sole hope of hugging her grandchildren again before she died. Her visits from the continent were met not with warmth, but with closed doors, administrative blocks, and indifference. Her love — unshakable and unconditional — wasn’t enough for the system. And when she finally passed, it was without that final embrace.

If you’ve ever loved your grandmother — that alone is enough to make you cry.

What hurts most is how unsurprising it all is. The professionals involved — lawyers, social workers, CAFCASS officers — often seem more focused on procedure than people. There’s a chilling sense of machinery grinding forward, but does it really work? Even when reports acknowledge that Gabor has changed, that he’s doing the work, the outcomes remain the same. Why? Is redemption only available to some?

But the book is not a simple indictment of women, courts, or even Agnes, the children’s mother. Gabor isn’t interested in revenge. He just wants to be heard. That distinction matters. He owns his past, acknowledges his mistakes, and tries again and again to reach across the divide — often humiliated, always hopeful. His resilience is staggering.

The buffalo is his symbol: facing into the northern wind, refusing to turn away from the storm. It’s not subtle, but it’s true. This man does not give up — even when everyone around him tells him to.

And the system? It isn’t evil. But it is blind — blind to things only humans can see. Blind to love that doesn’t fit within neat definitions. Blind to the complex realities of reconciliation. Blind to children who are not being physically harmed, but are slowly disappearing emotionally. Because sometimes harm isn’t bruises. It’s absence.

There’s no hero here. Just a father, flawed and full of love, stumbling through a legal and emotional maze in search of his children. And in telling his story, he gives voice to so many who’ve been silenced — parents and children alike.

By the end, I wasn’t thinking about custody or legal rights. I was thinking about the real stuff — the human stuff. The bedtime stories. The playground victories. The raspberries his mother couldn’t finish. The smell of the tent on a rainy morning. The child’s voice asking, “Daddy, promise you’ll always be there whenever I’m in trouble.”

This book reminded me of that child. And the moment they realised not every promise can be kept.

North East of Eden is not an easy read. And it’s not a heavy read either. It’s a human one. Honest, unfiltered, sometimes chaotic — true to life. It doesn’t offer answers. It doesn’t tie anything up neatly. But it does something better: it stays with you. Like a voice calling out from somewhere just beyond reach.

And if you’ve ever loved someone you lost through silence, distance, or bureaucracy — if you’ve ever been a child waiting for a grown-up to come back and try again — this book will find you.

And like love, it won’t let you go.