This Writer's Life: Why Write Memoir When Fiction is So Much More Respectable?

This Writer's Life is a blog about writing in the swirling free-fall of the publishing industry. I'll cover everything that comes across my radar in the world of writing and publishing--from inside chatter from conversations with publishers and editors, to commentary from my favorite book lovers on Twitter. I'll ponder the challenges of writing a literary book review, and the joy of writing a personal essay for Real Simple. I'll cover the pitches bought and proposals rejected, and tell you about the young woman in my audience at a campus lecture who told me she's never read a book on paper. Genre fiction, book to film, pages I love right now, experiences I have teaching memoir in my workshops, and reviews of literary gadgets people send me to review: it will all be here. I'll also take requests. What do you want to know about the life of a writer circa 2009? Comment, ask questions, and commiserate. Let's fire it up! I'm kicking off with the question of memoir because I ask myself why I do what I do like, every other day. And also because I just reviewed Irene Vilar's gorgeous memoir: Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict for Book Forum, and am stumbling through Marya Hornbacher's Madness and trying not to lose my mind. Memoir. Love it, hate it? What has it done for you lately? I started writing this for a talk I gave at the San Miguel Allende Writer's Conference, where I looked out in the audience and locked eyes with my very first therapist, a gentle woman I hadn't seen in at least a decade. I was mortified. But it's all a part of, you guessed it, the writer's life! But more on that later.

I stared rethinking memoir while I was writing Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence, a book about my pregnancy, son's birth, and the enduring maternal ambivalence I felt throughout. Booksellers were proclaiming the form dead, and agents opined it was all about the first novel. James Frey had just sullied the genre, and there was the teeny detail of the aftermath of my first memoir: I was disowned.

After USA Today called that first book "stunningly honest," people told me how much they loved the book, how it changed their lives, how gorgeous it is and so on. I heard all of that, I really did, but I also heard what they didn't say. Like, how they would never write a book like mine. They would never describe their first blowjob to the world in thrilling detail, or admit to shoplifting from JC Penney. While they benefit from me doing it and pity the exorbitant price I paid, at the end of the day I don't think they really respect me for it. And neither do my colleagues and critics.

I love the form and feel it is mine the way others feel poetry or the short story is theirs, but memoir is still seen as the first cousin of the tabloid, is it not? This is especially true, as my friend and fellow memoirist Peggy Orenstein reminded me, if you are the offspring of a celebrity. Time magazine likened reading my first book to watching a celebrity train wreck, and the Library Journal said I was certain to sell a lot of books because I revealed titillating details about my relationship with my famous mother, Alice Walker. It is all just too messy: the embarrassing disclosures, the cries of nepotism, and the spectacle of the drama of a famous family. Tabloid, the critics think. Not art.

Maybe I should write fiction, my father says. Maybe I should write fiction, I repeat, amazed anyone would think an artist can switch easily from one form to another, from first person to third. Maybe he should practice copyright law rather than corporate litigation. But if I want literary credibility, or even the respect of my own family, maybe I should keep trying to write fiction. I can make up characters and have them act out elaborate scenes that convey my feelings without incriminating anyone I might run into at Whole Foods, or more to the point, family dinner.

And so I recenthly sat down at my desk and asked my husband why on earth I should write another book sure to offend. He had no idea. I sighed and started fiddling with sentences, deleting and reinstating paragraphs, but I couldn't commit. I was unsettled. I needed to get to the bottom, once and for all, of why I do what I do. Why write memoir when fiction is so much more respectable?

Over the next ten weeks, I'm going to come up with at least five reasons. I swear. I'll also riff on your responses. Why write memoir? What are your favorite memoirs and why? Is it a worthwhile project, in this day in age of billions of gushing, autobiographical blogs? Is it worth the trees?

 

Follow Rebecca Walker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rebeccawalker

Comments

[Tulka2]

One of the books i always pack when i am on a dessert island is the best autobiography i know, Vladimir Nabokov's, Speak Memory. It has nothing to do with my life. The picks me up and transports me to an alien existence. The sentences rattle round my head forever. Speak Memory, became one of my past lives.

[adrenac]

"I heard all of that, I really did, but I also heard what they didn't say. Like, how they would never write a book like mine.......at the end of the day I don't think they really respect me for it. And neither do my colleagues and critics."

Ok, my first question to you would be, who are these critics and colleagues and in what fishbowl/fairy tale world do they live in?! They could never write a book like yours because it's acceptable and comfortable to talk about the good in your life, your accomplishments, your success. That makes people warm and fuzzy inside. What about the reality of life? Times when things weren't "normal" or rosy? Better yet, what about the encounters­/experienc­es with family that are hurtful, embarrassing, or shameful? Perhaps those same critics and colleagues have their own past/present life issues that they have yet to address or come to grips with?
Your experiences are the true experiences that speak to the lives of others (including myself) and ultimately win the respect of your readers.
Fiction is nice, but memoirs come from the heart. :-)

[black lily]

".....at the end of the day I don't think they really respect me for it."
Hopefully this is a little balm....My favorite writer of all time is Anais Nin...and the reason I love and respect her so very much is her unflinching honesty...the way she shared even the most unflattering, ugly details about herself in her diaries. The honesty, human honesty, is startlingly beautiful.

I struggle with it the honesty, especially when it comes to sharing the dirty family secrets which are my story, but also can potentially start feuds, hurt feelings, get me disowned. So, mostly I hide safely behind lipgloss article and poetry/fiction in my cowardice. But, I'm getting braver by the day. Seeing/reading others doing it helps:)

Ooh, reminds me....I have Huff's book "On Becoming Fearless" (have to re-read that). Super congrats on Huffington Post. This makes you instant rockstar in my book, as one time I met Ariana and she called me "gAaaaaH-jessssss", so of course I love her 4 always and 4 ever.

[mamaayanna]

My first memoir is the Diary of Che Guevera and my favorite is Asata. Both of course political memoirs, where yours are yes more personal, messy but with valid insights and offerings. Do write your memoirs Rebecca, mostly because in the US and many western countries, people's minds are stuck in fantasies and media spin. A good dose of life, messy, sexy, juicy, tragic and all the inbetweens and connecting realities are good for folks, especially those who think that if they were famous and rich (or both) that their life would be so much easier.

Also, DO WHAT YOU LOVE! Share your gifts in the ways that the Universe and the Ancestars inspire you too. That is part of your purpose. What the Goddess put you on this planet to do. Who knows what your experiences and insights might do to inspire, inform or assist in the evolution of another human being.
Stay blessed.