Whose Life Is It Anyway?
So the world lost Zinn and Salinger. I very much admired Zinn . . . and I loved Salinger's writing--liked "Franny and Zooey," especially.
If you read Spanish Disco, then it's obvious that the idea of a man writing a novel that "changed people" and then becoming a broken recluse was very much inspired by Salinger. I always felt sorry for him--and not because he was a recluse. It was because people in his life wrote books about him.
I supposed it is anyone's right to write about their lives, but the fact is Joyce Maynard would never have had the story of her affair published had not the affair been with J. D. Salinger. And I guess it all begs the question of Whose Life Is It Anyway?
So this isn't a post about writing, per se. It's my lifting my cup of coffee to both Zinn and Salinger. But I also wonder . . . what do you think of memoirists who expose the lives of unwilling others in their works?
25 comments:
That's a tough question. I think the answer is found in the memoirists motivation as well as timing. I think if the memoirist is looking for their own fifteen minutes of fame or to seek revenge, it's clearly wrong. On the other hand, if, at some point (like after the person has passed away and the expose can't wound him/her) a memoirist reveals something about another AND telling the truth has the potential of seriously helping other people see the consequences of certain behavior, then it can indeed be a very good thing. It all depends on how that truth is written. If the author takes the high road and presents the truth in such a way that all people mentioned are treated with dignity, value, and respect, then there is a place for it. Otherwise, not so much.
I'm often appalled. I've mentioned this before, but I remember an interview where Frank Zappa snapped that regurgitating your emotions for money was sickening, or something along those lines. I know some folks think the memoirist is sharing their stories to "help other people" and I suppose it's true at some level, but it's also a weirdly voyeuristic thing to do. I'm thinking of McKenzie Phillips who trotted out all the horrible things about her father after he died and all I could think of what it was a nauseating thing to do for money. Or maybe there's a revenge element to it.
The best ones always manage to keep those people as friends. Corrigan and Walls both said their mothers shrugged. Soffee said she was caught off guard when the person who was her hero and portrayed as such in the book kicked Soffee out of her life after the book. Dooce who blogs daily about her life and says some outrageous things about the family is still close to her family.
I haven't heard Sedaris speak about the things he said and how it affected his life. I'm reading him now and thinking, wow, is his mother still alive?
Kettlewell asked a question of another memorist at a conference once that made me realize she sort of regretted writing her memoir.
Beth:
I have (because I have Crohn's disease) thought of keeping a private blog of that portion of my life . . . I could see writing a book to offer whatever guidance or insights you've gleaned regarding a disease. And I understand processing . . . that memoirists process their experiences that way . . . but I still find it largely icky. Though, truth be told about our society, the memoirs that get the most press coverage are often hideous ones about things I just don't understand people sharing.
Mark:
That tends to be where my feelings lie.
Richmond:
I am a voracious Sedaris reader. I think he style and the fact that they are all eccentrics let him get away with a lot. ALSO, if you see him live or read ALL of his stuff, there are ones that balance the ridiculous with tremendous poignancy and love. There is one he wrote about being kicked out of the house for being gay (his father's decision) and his mother helping him move and sobbing and holding her son . . . every time I read it, I cry. It's really beautiful.
I don't know. I think there is a difference between a writer writing, and the general public cashing in on someone else's fame. I love Pat Conroy's writing, raw and honest, meanwhile his writing has alienated him from his family. Some secrets should be told, I think. That being said, I don't think that I would expose my family in that way. Like I said, I don't know.
Heather:
Good points . . . I think some of my feelings are definitely cultivated by the confessional culture we live in. I loathe it. Why do I can if this actress or that one worries about her weight or had sex with this one, or broke up with that one. I don't get the public's fascination with vapid people.
And some of it is . . . as in the case of Maynard . . . if that person she had the affair with had not been a famous man, would anyone publish it?
I can think of a few ex-boyfriends who, if they'd been famous, I'd SO be willing to tell the world what a jerk they are, LOL. But I kid, mostly.
The thing is, secrets and bad stuff have collateral damage. You're not just hurting the person, who may totally deserve it, but the people who love and are loved by that person, people who are innocent and don't deserve the grief. Although, really, I'm not sure that's a healthy outlook, either.
I have to agree with Natasha's point of view, mostly. I mean, you do hurt all those anonymous people attached to anyone you slam or reveal secrets about in a memoir. Humiliating the spouse and children of a married man you had an affair with to the entire world is pretty cruel; and if you write a book exposing it because the guy did you wrong and you want revenge, or because you'll get a lot of cash because he's famous, it's the wrong reason.
Sigh. I think it's one of those situations where the gray has to be evaluated, because there's neither black nor white.
You got me going this morning, Erica. This is an interesting discussion among your commenters.
My relationships and life experiences have provided me with a certain passion for dealing with specific issues and themes in my writing. I also have no desire to garner wealth, notoriety, or pity from them. Nor do I have a need to get revenge. I do have a need to speak certain truths, to stop speaking the lies that hid destructive secrets. I'm also not one to choose to remember only the good, because out of the pain and healing is where I find my highest truth.
However, there is a HUGE responsibility that comes with telling the truth. That's why I have chosen to tell those truths through fiction. IF you read my work, you'll find themes of alcoholism, suicide, and child abuse, and certainly my readers can surmise that I write from personal experience, but I work very hard to make sure my characters do not resemble the people or circumstances in my life.
I have found it cathartic to write and rewarding to hear from a reader that my work has caused them to think or rethink something pertaining to the theme of my story.
The past couple of years I've found myself leaving those themes and issues behind, writing more to enchant and entertain and less to make a statement or to help others. I think it's a matter of maturing as a person and as a writer. Writing is much more fun as true art rather than a form of talk therapy.
I also think a person who has the need to expose all their secrets publicly are either searching for someone to witness and validate their experiences or they are complete narcissists -- either way, they are in need of professional intervention.
I've never understood our confessional culture, because while I have issues, they're veiled by and through my fiction. I don't think anyone could really pick up on some of my issues (except for the basic recurring father issue). But some of the others are very hidden beneath characterization and words. I know it's there and that's sufficient. I want readers to take away what works for THEM, not what works for me, if that makes sense.
I heard a thing on NPR this am where a guy basically spent his vacation chasing down Salinger and finally met him. And while the radio show sort of celebrated it, I thought, "You asshole. He wants to be left alone and you intruded on him." It was all about the fan, not Salinger, but no one seemed to see that but me.
Natasha:
Yes. All that collateral damage. And it's ultimately just ONE POV.
Writtenwyrd:
Totally . . . . .
I mean, look at the Tiger Woods thing. Is he creepy? Sure. But to watch women fall over themselves to now spill intimate details for money? It compounds what's just plain wrong--and yet the public loves to eat it up.
Beth:
My books often have very dark themes, too. But it's fiction.
And most of the times, one of the themes is there is no truth. There's only your truth. So catharsis for one person may be based on only one version of reality. I often think of people who must meet my children's father's mother. Sat on charity boards with her. Whatever. Who must think how lovely she is. Yet the things she has said behind closed doors, and the fact that she threw away four grandchildren a decade ago? She is not a nice person--BUT . . .that is MY truth. She is NOT nice to my children. Not in the slightest of ways. But there is a second face and a second "truth" that she presents to the world. My truth is mine. It's a fuzzy thing.
Starbucks:
In Spanish Disco, the author, Roland Riggs felt hunted. His wife was killed by an unsolved gunshot. He felt literally hunted. And figuratively. I think that NPR thing is horrible. What right does anyone have to break that barrier between art and artist unless invited?
What a great discussion today. I don't like to judge other people. If we have life themes, that's probably one of mine - every time I've fallen into a pattern of judging someone, at some point in the near future it bites me in the ass and I do something or am in a situation where I am as much at fault or totally understand where they were coming from. Or maybe my theme is forgiveness, or maybe they go hand-in-hand.. but I'm getting off the point.
There's a line, for me, on how much is too much as far as memoir and expose go. It's kind of like literary fiction, I couldn't define it for you, but I know it when I see it.
I've read a few memoirs that I really liked, but I'm very aware of the fact that in telling 'my story' the author has to tell everyone else's stories, too, or worse, their perception of everyone else's story.
I can't work in memoir, myself, it feels wrong to me. Intrusive. And it's one reason I'm so determined that my characters are NOT based on anyone in my real life. I explore themes that resonate with me, but I take real effort not to let them drag other people into it.
And I do see something wrong in using Salinger in a memoir, especially considering how much he detested attention, even attention for his own writing, which he loved. I haven't read her memoir or his daughters, and I don't want to really comment on their right or lack thereof as far as what they wrote, but it's not to my taste, personally.
I don't know - I think your intellectual property and emotional properties belong to you. So having someone else borrow them for their own career or fortune or purpose, seems like it would be more than hurtful. And on an ethical level, I couldn't build my fortune on the back of someone else's reputation.
merry:
I have read some great memoirs, too. Maybe some of it has to do with what you are mining, how you are treating the subject, and so on. Using someone else's fame to make a case for your own memoir? Not too cool.
However, I was the editor for Meg Ryan's mother's memoir of her battle with breast cancer. By the time I worked with Susan, she had been falsely maligned in the press with so many lies . . . and so there was a "piece" of her memoir setting the record straight. It was an up-close look at why someone would do so.
E
I think it's sad when people's lives are invaded when all they want is privacy.
Celebrities come to Maui because they want to get away from it all and enjoy a nice vacation. They arrive in private planes and the only person who knows they are here is the limo drive who takes them to the hotel. But by the time they get there, paparazzi are already staked out waiting for them because the driver has tipped off his friends.
In 2008, I turned down a lucrative writing gig because I would have been doing the same thing they were doing. My career might be a lot further along now, but I have absolutely no regrets.
I'm an extremely private person and I don't want to intrude on their lives, just as I wouldn't want them intruding on mine.
As for memoirs, I never read the "tell alls" that people write because they've had 15 minutes of fame and want to get money off of it (i.e. Tiger's girls). Makes me sad actually and I can only hope that if I get famous, no one decides to write about me in middle school, or high school, or my college boyfriend, etc. I have nothing to hide, but I still don't want info out about me, you know?
But I have enjoyed tasteful memoirs such as The Glass Castle. I don't know how her family reacted though.
Nadine:
I thought that was an eloquent memoir as well. Again, I think her reasons as writer were far different from fame whores.
E
I think the lack of restraint in our culture regarding celebrities comes from people not thinking of the celebrities as real--from thinking they're little toy people and it's okay to torture them because that's what they're for.
It's hard to think of a pro wrestler as just a human being. It's hard to think of a plastic-beautiful actress as just a person. It's also hard to have sympathy for someone who is very rich and famous when you would dearly like to be.
And so those people become de-humanized in the public's collective mind, and once that happens, the public considers them objects which it owns.
When one human being decides they own another, they usually also decide they're entitled to hurt and control that other person at will. I think celebrity-hounding is what that is.
JJ:
Oh, I definitely see that. But then there are the celebrities that COURT the very situation. The celebrities who are famous for being famous. The Parish Hiltons of no discernable talent. The whole dynamic is very strange in this country. No wonder actors like Johnny Depp move to France and other places.
My experience with this is really personal because I started writing a memoir years ago and when I realized what had to go into it (seems basic, but you can't really pick and choose) I stopped writing it. I decided that the story I was telling was not only mine, but others. And that was their story to tell, not mine. I guess that's true with all memoir, but in my case the fallout wasn't something that interested me.
The revenge element - it didn't suit me.
I have a T-shirt that says "Writing well is the best revenge." I just go with that.
Amy:
As a ghostwriter, I get approached a minimum of four or five times a year, often by people on the fringes of fame, who want me to ghostwrite a book for them. There's usually a sizable amount of money involved--and I haven't taken one of them yet--the "revenge" books. It's just not a healthy way to go into writing a book. The karma ain't worth it.
E
What do I think of memoirists who expose the lives of unwilling others? I think they have to have agents, publishers and others who aid and abet them. That's what happens when writing and publishing becomes solely a money game.
PS I love the word memoirists. Is it real?
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