What we write about when we write about family
Posted: January 20, 2012 Filed under: writing, family, writers, life | Tags: writing about family, memoir, joan didion, mary karr, anne lamott, valerie frankel, augusten burroughs, jeannette walls, lidia yukavitch, tracy ross, katherine harris 39 Comments »A post I wrote last year caused someone I love deeply much heartache. Enough heartache that the person talked to another family member who talked to me. They wanted the post taken down.
I was being “selfish and insensitive.”
I took the post down. And now, even writing this feels as if I’m crossing their line. Their boundary of what is too much for me to write and what is safe.
Taking the post down didn’t feel right either.
But this post isn’t about my family. It’s about writing about family.
Family experiences are shared experiences. Any experience I can summon, any memory I translate into words, is completely, 100 percent, totally and without exception my interpretation of the experience.
I could write a singular story about an isolated event; in some stories I would be the heroine. In others, the villain. But a family history isn’t made up of singular events. And no story worth reading is ever written to to hurt another. It’s written to give the writer a voice.
What would we do without writers writing about their family?
Joan Didion? Mary Karr? Katherine Harris? Anne Lamott? Betsy Lerner? Valerie Frankel? Augusten Burroughs? Jeannette Walls? Lidia Yuknavitch? David Sedaris? (David Sedaris!) Frank McCourt? Tracy Ross? Shirley Maclaine? Elizabeth Wurtzel? Phyllis Theroux? William Styron? Alexandra Styron? Christopher Buckley? Azar Nafisi? Jim Carroll? and on and on and on and on…
I’m not comparing my itty-bitty blog with the literary weight of these writers. But, writing is writing. It’s what I do. IT IS ALL I EVER WANTED TO DO. (writing that last line, just now, brought big fat tears to my eyes.)
As a writer; I believe that my purpose is to write my stories. To share my experiences. To shine a flashlight down the dark alleys that make us feel frightened and alone.
I’ve been frightened and felt alone and writing about it is often the quickest route for me to find my way back.
Ever since taking that post down, I have felt as if I lost my flashlight. I question what I write. I censor myself. My fingers tap the keys constantly aware that any wrong stroke could end up hurting someone I love. Ever since taking that post down, I have stepped away from the page. I didn’t realize how big of step I took until tonight.
It’s time for me to turn around and head back in the right direction.
Keep shining that flashlight Amy.
Amy, just been re-reading Stephen King on writing:
p168 ” If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.”
love. thank you (and welcome back, i just saw your post in my inbox!)
What she said…
It’s such a difficult path. I wrote some essays, but they involve people I’m afraid of hurting – or inciting their wrath. No one’s seen them. I even took down my link to Betsy on my blog because I was pretty sure someone from a small (SMALL) town was stocking me online and I didn’t want them to see what I wrote there. My comments around the circle are less personal or non-existent because of it. My point being, I think you are very brave, Amy.
first, thank you.
and second, should you ever want to post those essays anonymously, mi casa su casa. for real. you can be a guest blogger…come up with a pen name…whatever. (we can work out the details so that you stay anonymous and untrackable.) sometimes just getting feedback on something that you dare not put your name on can help unblock you creatively.
you got me email address. let ‘er rip.
Thanks for such a great offer! Now I’ll definitely have to dust them off.
It’s a leap of faith, an act of bravery, a necessary function all rolled into one.
Exactly. And get the brightest bulbed flashlight you can find and keep searching.
Seeing your list of writers all in one place is inspiring. Where would we all be, indeed, without their voices?
I forget who said “When a writers is born into a family, that family ceases to exist,” but that was some time ago, and now I read this sentence differently. Now I think a writer is born into a family because it’s time for cleansing, for a new chapter to begin, to create an opening.
i think a writer is born into a family because both the writer and their family members did something they shouldn’t have done in a previous life.
(that’s me being funny.) (although, i’m positive i did a lot of things i shouldn’t have done in this life and the ones before.)
I gave Chloe The Liar’s Club and The Adderall Diaries to take back to school. I thought they were two very different but very good examples of memoir.
That’s very cool, Lisa. When I feel lost, I still go back to read and/or listen to Mary Karr.
Amy,I’ve always looked at you as a seeker, like me, asking questions and listening for possible answers while poking each of us to discover our own voice and use it. So….the questions you have provoked in me today are “What do we do when our voice/truth will hurt/damage a relationship we value? Do we compromise ourself or risk the relationship? Is it an either/or choice or could there be some both/and solutions? Does it feel like you lost your flashlight because in your past you had to sacrifice your voice for another’s feelings quite often? Is this an old feeling? And just because you feel it, does it make it true? Your flashlight just lit me up today. Thanks for this post, lovely luminous lady!
YES! yes, yes, yes, yes.
thank you for asking all the right questions.
the whole “is there a solution” thing took a swift turn for me in recent days. i went from trying to find so many answers in a number of areas to understanding on a gut level that sometimes (most of the time) there is no answer. that finding the answer isn’t the point. i think i spent a lot of my life trying to make things “right” when there was nothing to make one way or another. it just was. that’s a hard thing to grasp.
Well, this chicken has come home to roost. I just got a text from Chloe. She’s got a creative writing class this semester and she wrote to say that her first essay was about me.
Gulp!
Oh lord. We will need full reports on this situation. I don’t have kids so I can’t imagine getting a taste of my own medicine, but I can imagine…
Apparently I both can’t and can imagine it. What can I say? I’m a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Or something.
I’ll let you know if she offers it to me to read. I suspect she wouldn’t have mentioned it if it painted a horrible picture of me. Right? Right.
i’m remembering when ashley judd’s mom read ashley’s memoir and simply said, “it’s all true.”
how great, right? i know that my mom is proud of me and likes reading what i write (most of the time) but still struggles with my subject matter. it’s hard. it’s as if you want to open every piece with a disclaimer about how you still love whoever happens to show up in your story and that the writing isn’t so much about them or who they are, but about how life has shaped you and how you felt when certain things happened to you.
my husband is a great resource. he always says, “what would you tell our daughter to do?”
the answer? be honest. writing this, i would have told her, “don’t take that post down.”
I’m going to encourage her to write about whatever she wants. I know how hard it is to hold back. I sit on so much material because I know it would fry my mother’s nerves. Stories that would hurt her not because they are about her, but because it would embarrass her, irritate her that I’ve done some of the things I’ve done.
I can’t do that to Chloe. She has a right to tell her stories. Goodness knows I’ve written plenty about her and her siblings over the years.
You guys remind me of this in ten years when she’s finished her MFA and had a book published, okay?
You’ve raised a writer! How wonderful and how damn scary. Yeah, I have a feeling it would be a secret you would know only if you stumbled upon it if it were scathing. It might make you cry, in a good way!
We’re skyping tonight. I wonder if she’ll talk about it. Either way, I’m happy that she likes to write. She wants to be an editor. Now. Who knows later.
Amy, this is quite lovely. I’m emailing it to a friend who might appreciate your words, too.
I don’t write about family often, so I’m not usually in this situation — but it has come up, and it really can be uncomfortable. Right now I’m working on a nonfiction piece about my “romantic past” (allow me to stifle a laugh) and I found myself wondering what my husband would think of it. I even worried, “Am I allowed to write about this? If he doesn’t like it, does that mean I can’t?” And then I quickly came to my senses and realizes two things. 1. I’m the writer, I’m the one telling the story, and this is about my voice. 2. When it comes down to it, I know my husband wouldn’t have it any other way.
Good luck finding your way back to the light.
“does that mean i can’t”
i know those words so well. “Can I write this?” Such a routine question. But then you think…I’m a writer. I can write whatever I want. (And most of the time, the things that make you stop and ask, “Can I” usually bring your best writing to the forefront because it’s touching on that raw nerve that is as real and as honest as you can get.)
You’re a brave woman to write the way you do. It can’t be easy. My mom called last Friday, concerned about some of the things I reveal in my writing, and it really shut me down. I don’t want to hurt her or make her worry. But in the end, we each have a right to the story as we’ve experienced it. Your story won’t be the whole truth, but it’s your truth and you are entitled to tell it.
thank you.
I think the same of you; and I know that “shut down” feeling. it can be paralyzing. my shut down started at the keyboard and then started moving into other categories (work, column-writing, exercise…it was like a domino affect for me. my writing is my way of clearing the clutter. if i can’t clear the back-up of clutter wreaks havoc on everything from writing to how well i’m keeping up with laundry and cleaning out leftovers.)
I totally identify with you, Amy. I think the fear of what others (especially family) would think about my writing has been the exact thing that has kept me silent all these years. I have not written seriously in 10 years even though–like you–I’ve known since childhood that it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. The only thing I’ve ever shown any kind of promise for, in fact. You go, girl.
So nice to hear from you Susan.
Have you considered writing/blogging under an anonymous name? I’ve got a few friends/writers who that has worked out well for.
Sometimes just being honest in a comment like this is a good way to start.
10 years is a long time to go quiet–especially when it’s all you ever wanted to do. The best thing about writing this blog for me is the support I get from other writers. It’s moved my writing forward more than anything thing else I’ve done in my writing life. (and now you’re part of the circle too…so there’s that!)
I so excited that you replied to my comment–it will make my whole day! I’ve actually been skulking around your blog for a long time and you have greatly inspired me both in writing and in life. I have really been able to draw a lot of parallels between you and I. Writing anonymously might be a perfect way for me to get started. That’s a great idea. I look forward to being part of the circle!
I wish . . . I wish I was brave enough to write my memoirs. I wish I was brave enough to deliberately unearth the memories and feel the feelings and write them down.
I’m not, yet. So I shine my flashlight under the covers of fiction.
If I ever am . . . I don’t think the people connected with those memories will get a say.
I love being able to hide under the guise of fiction although woven throughout those words is a healthy dose of truth if someone knows where to look.
One of the biggest things wasn’t a family issue. It was the fear for my daughter when they were testing her for nasty things like leukemia and bone cancer. I wrote it all into the story line of my character losing her son. All the things I couldn’t say out loud.
Thank God.
It is one thing to write about yourself, your shortcomings, failures, trouble times, but when you write about someone else, well, that kind of feels like a violation. I see both sides, but there are things I wouldn’t want written about me by anyone but myself. This is a fine line to walk and no one leaves unscathed.
Anon,
I imagine it would feel like a violation, true. But just because I wouldn’t want someone to write about me, does not mean that they have no right to write it.
There is no way to write about yourself, your shortcomings, failures etc., in a vacuum. At some point, there is a responsibility in all of us, to face our fears about who we were, who we are, and who we become. That choice is ours individually. Just because you choose not to face yours, or not to face it publicly which is fully your right, does not mean that you can silence someone else.
There are few things more dangerous than silence. And sometimes when you clean a house, you have to move the furniture to get underneath.
I hope that doesn’t come across disrespectfully, because no disrespect is intended.
You’re right in that no one leaves unscathed, but no one was unscathed to begin with. Some just hide it better.
No disrespect taken, but if you are gay and someone “outs” you, this is considered a real breach of trust, and “who has the right to out someone who is gay?” So where do you draw the line? This is all very complicated, I don’t know the right answer, but to say, “I was a slut, meth addict” is one thing, but to have someone else say it about you is another.
Anon, I think there’s a clear precedent of not outing people for their sexual orientation in a homophobic world. There are slander laws for this reason. Memoir is a type of artistic expression that is protected by free speech laws, as long as it does not violate libel/slander laws. I think whenever there’s been pain in the family, people are afraid to talk about it. But that fear of being painted in a negative light is usually much worse in our imaginations than it ends up being, in reality. And that fear isn’t a good reason to shut others up. Especially if we love that person & want them to grow. We might not like or agree with what they say, or how they say it, but we have the right to tell our side of the story, too. How they write or talk about us reflects on them, as much or more than it does us, as a minor character in what is essentially their story. Still your fears & run your own race, walk your truth, and write your own story. <3
Amy, I keep mentioning Alexandra Styron’s book all over the place but again, I’m thinking of it with your post. Every few pages, especially when she cuts to the quick of a memory or a description of her father, I slow a moment and think what it must have taken for her to write that. But her conviction, her COMMITMENT to her truth of her father is so unwavering, that you can’t feel conflicted for her. And I realize that is what it takes to write truthfully about those people we know and love and sometimes both and I am in awe
Except for my blog, I write fiction. And within that fiction is sometimes veiled truth. It’s still a release for me as a writer, but it’s an easier and more comfortable route for me.
And even when it comes to the blog, I tend to keep real life lighter. Often lighter than it really is, but that’s what works for me.
I give you and other nonfiction writers a lot of credit for telling it like it is. I guess I’m a bit of a writerly wimp. I’m OK with that at this point of my life. But I could see it changing…