Two tricks to memoir writing: tell the truth and curate your details
Issue #273: the “false prophets” of poverty, Socrates, and letting go
Meghan Daum, author of My Misspent Youth (excerpted here by the New Yorker), said memoir is often described as “navel-gazing,” and “indulgent” because many writers “treat it sloppily and without respect.”
While honesty is the key to good memoir writing, Daum warns this doesn’t mean you should “include every detail, play out every emotional drama.” A memoir writer should instead be wary of becoming too confessional, or “blurting out a bunch of stuff and just leaving it there for shock value.”
The day I got a ketamine infusion while my house burned down by Kate Alexandria gets this balance right. Alexandria’s home did indeed burn down during January’s Altadena fire, while she was getting a ketamine infusion. She essentially slept through the destruction, and I found myself riveted to every word.
Alexandria strikes the balance Daum recommends by simply writing honestly about what happened, fact by fact, detail by detail. Reflections are sprinkled throughout, but they aren’t overwrought or dramatic; she remains honest while not exploding all over the page. Two sentences that made me feel like I was there: “The air was thick and acrid with angry, fresh smoke. As far as the eye could see, stretching up Lake Avenue until it disappeared in the haze and the orange brightness of flame, there were cars bumper-to-bumper.” (Fortunately or unfortunately, she didn’t sleep through all of it.)
I see this, too, in The Making of an Invisible Child by Milena Babic. It bills itself as a piece about parenting advice, but that wildly undersells what it actually is: a brutally honest account of losing a parent’s love. One day Babic’s father adored her, the next he was undermining her at every turn, rendering Babic invisible. Babic writes about this in a dreamlike way, and unlike Alexandria’s piece, nothing feels concrete. And yet it also remains honest without tipping overboard. One of many favorite lines: “Dad’s silent treatments smelled like newspapers.”
But I suspect the formula for a good memoir is even simpler. As Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us, “Don’t fucking lie.”
What else we’re reading
- Kentucky is underwater again, and the devastation is hard to process. Kentucky is also, as Coyote Wallace writes, deeply misunderstood. In Hungry Like Me: The False Prophets of Poverty, Wallace explains why Kentuckians who live below the poverty line often support Trump. (Wallace does not, for the record.) It boils down to a question of trust. “If how we Appalachians are presented in the eyes of the media is incorrect,” Wallace writes, “then it follows that the people who have long mocked us and refused our cries for representation would also lie about Trump.”
- If you’ve been looking for an accessible primer on Socrates, you’re in luck. Massimo Pigliucci, a professor of philosophy at the City College of New York, provides one here. One moment that stuck out to me: Socrates wandered around Athens interviewing politicians, poets, craftsmen — all so-called “experts” who ultimately couldn’t explain their expertise. His conclusion? The wisest people readily admit their lack of wisdom.
💡 Your daily dose of practical wisdom
The next time someone hurts or disappoints you, let them. You’ll stop wasting energy on things you could have never controlled in the first place.
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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb, Harris Sockel, & Carly Rose Gillis
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