Memoir: Question everything
Don't skimp on interviews and prepare to be surprised
This introduces a series on writing called Beyond Argument, a section of Casey’s Catch. If any would rather not receive these, just shoot me a message and I’ll spare you future installments.
One dull pandemic day in 2020, I decided to read the dozens of diaries that I had accumulated in several attic crates for years. I have kept journals since the age of 13. Yet I have rarely reread what I have written; when I finish one diary, I toss it in a crate and start another. The shutdown gave me the time to read nearly 50 years of journal entries. Plowing through all those notebooks took the better part of a week.
To my surprise, even as an eighth grader I was a reporter, writing pages of dialogue and describing my mother’s worry, my sister’s struggle with kidney disease and my father’s drunken scenes. I read the hilarious statements my mother made amid (and despite) our family chaos that I had carefully written down as a teenager, but which, in adulthood, I had long forgotten.
I found a narrative arc and wrote a book, a slice of life covering the most tumultuous days of childhood.
Writing “Saving Ellen” took 15 months. Rewrites took another nine months. In between, I spent three months researching the very early years of kidney transplants and my hometown of Buffalo in the 1960s and 70s.
Here is what I learned about the process of writing a memoir:
— If your goal from the outset is to be boring and make readers flee, start the narrative with the very day you were born. I didn’t. Instead, I began with a typical childhood morning: I was stealing from my father, a hair-raising endeavor even when it went well, and that particular morning, it didn’t. So, start with a bad day. Or start with a good day that turns into a bad day. Whatever you do, intrigue the readers and put them in the middle of the action from the beginning.
— What you leave out is often more important than what you leave in.
— Visit the setting of your memoir. It will jog your memory - not just the sights, but the smells, the feel of the wind, the sounds.
— Anything that does not move the story forward is usually expendable. That extends to people, too. Don’t include Aunt Sadie because she will be upset if you don’t mention her. Does she move the story? If not, show Sadie the door. We won’t miss her, and we won’t tell.
— Mary Karr’s book, “The Art of Memoir” is among the most helpful writing books of the dozens I have collected over the years. It is invaluable to anyone writing about their own past. (I have a huge collection of writing how-to books because reading about writing, rather than doing it, is my favorite form of procrastination. Don’t judge me. )
— Question every memory. Was it really sunny that day you hit a home run? If you have a date, check the weather history. Was your first new car really $2,000? Look up car ads in old newspapers. I gained access to the Buffalo News archives with a six-month subscription to newspapers.com for less than $20. Through the internet, I found that there was NOT a snowstorm the morning my parents were married, in February, in South Buffalo; instead, it was sunny, all day long, with not a single, fat snowflake falling from the sky. Go figure. Another family legend, shattered!
— EBay is your friend. It was maddeningly difficult for me to find statistics on kidney transplants in the 1960s and early 1970s when the field was in its infancy. Virtually every site with transplant data only went back to 1988. But on eBay I found a hardcover, 278-page medical book for sale, published in 1985, that contained exhaustive statistics concerning kidney transplants conducted in America from 1963 on. The price? Five bucks!
— Find a twist in your memoir that the readers won’t see coming. (I would tell you mine, but I don’t want to spoil the plot.)
— Give the reader scenes that elicit a range of emotions, especially humor. Zig when the reader expects you to zag.
— Do as many interviews as you can. Katharine Graham, the late publisher of the Washington Post, conducted hundreds of interviews while writing her memoir, “Personal History.” Her reporting made for a deeper, richer book. No question, interviews are invaluable.
My most interesting interviews occurred after I had tracked down and contacted one of Ellen’s doctors, a British physician who was in her late 20s when she treated Ellen. My search was made infinitely easier by the fact that Mary Hawking’s brother, Stephen, was world famous. I sent an email to Stephen Hawking’s foundation, at which Mary had a seat on the board, and within six hours received a return email whose subject line was, “How lovely to hear from you.” Renewing my acquaintance with her was rewarding to me personally; her perspective was invaluable to the story.
So pick up the phone or send an email to that one person in your past you want to reach. You may hear stories you never expected.
Writing “Saving Ellen” taught me a lot about my family, my beloved sister, about hard choices and, ultimately, about myself. The book is now in the hands of an agent. Stay tuned!