In the Upside Down
In which my memoir must be read backwards and in a mirror
I received another rejection letter this past week for my memoir. I’ve moved beyond excitement at the prospects of getting published to the excitement of convincing someone to just read it. Anyone who has looked at it has had positive things to say about it, but . . . It’s the “but” that remains unknown to me. But what’s not working? What’s the one thing I could change to convince an agent to read it?
I think deep down I know - the connection to The Waste Land is the positive and negative. The Waste Land is a monumental poem of great cultural, historical, and literary significance, and it provides a fitting skeleton to my story. But it overwhelms my story. It’s difficult in its own right and to expect a modern readership to have even passing familiarity with it is to expect too much.
However, while my memoir is connected to The Waste Land, it’s not The Waste Land. And one doesn’t need to know The Waste Land to understand my book. If one does know The Waste Land, then my book gains resonance and a greater literary depth. But that doesn’t mean that depth and the quality of my book’s structure doesn’t achieve meaning on its own.
I’m playing with some ideas based on feedback from a writer’s group. As much as I want this book to be done, I also think it has much to offer and would like to see it get published. I have ruled out self-publishing, but I’m going to give this book a fair chance yet.
Still, after almost 4 years, I’m ready for new projects. I’m sketching out my next book, my next memoir, this one about my childhood. And that’s where we enter the upside down.
Most memoirs I read or read about focus on dysfunctional childhoods - child undergoes some horrific experience, extreme deprivation, abuse, drugs, something. And child survives, goes onto become damaged but functioning who overcomes and becomes the adult who can tell the tale.
My life doesn’t follow that pattern. And if I’ve learned anything about literature it’s that there are patterns - books get published because they follow a formula. I live in the updside down - glorious childhood, dysfunctional adulthood.
My childhood was ideal, almost unbelievably so, an ideal childhood in an ideal place and time. In my culture, even though the fault lines of party politics, racism, sexism, and bigotry were strongly embedded in the foundation of our society, we were taught through example and through integration to accept people unlike ourselves. Sure, there were bullies. I’m sure some kids were taught racism at home. I’m sure some kids were taught to treat woman as objects. But that was nowhere near my upbringing. The school system was voluntariy and happily integrated, and my immediate household was a model of late 20th century feminism. I was taught to treat ALL people fairly and equally and with dignity and respect.
It’s during my adulthood where everything fell apart. The people who should have been my role models, the people who should have stayed by my side to support me when I faced difficulties - I was abandoned. There was a great rift of mental illness that coursed through my family and into my life from the outside. There were horrible bosses. It was an absolute pile-on. I kept the cheerful face and positive outlook, did the best I could every day, and when problems arose, I met them head on. I didn’t run and hide. I didn’t shirk responsibility. But there was still a pile-on. When the divorces happened, people naturally took sides. But I also had doors shut in my face for no reason, lost friends through the interference of family who turned on me. My loyalties in those from my childhood proved to be a mistake. They were not people to rely on after all.
My memoir is about learning to survive, not knowing the enemy I was facing, my own inexperience in dealing with conflict as well as the virulent strains of mental illness that twised, disfigured, and gnarled our very family tree into a rotten, withered stump. It took losing everything, to being pushed to the absolute precipice before I could see the bad behavior for what it was and to call it out.
Today, as I prepare to move cross country starting in 9 days, I embark on a new journey of reshaping the material I spent 4 years molding. I will continue to query. But I will look again at my book to see what I could see four years ago and 18 years ago.
Happy Monday everyone. Have an enjoyable week in late summer.
As for me, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing.
lee,
'This book is ready for the world, I have other books to write.'
As for any intimidation some may feel with the title, I'd agree: BS! It's a great fit.
Think Karl Ove Knausgaard: "Min Kamp" which went on to six volumes and was read by one in 9 Norwegians.
I have read (lightly) your posts. My family also has a struggle with classic mental disturbance. My own brother, a year younger and my best friend in childhood, was a committed psychiatric patient from age 19 until he gave up the ghost two years ago.
Best endeavors once settled into new home.
Hi Lee! I am thinking about the stories I’ve heard about the evolution of stories and books. It’s often not so linear. Sometimes people give up for years, then go back and do complete rewrites, because they now can see their story in a new, more revelatory light. I know you want to be done, but maybe you need to let it rest a while, keep reading, work on the new book, like farmers letting fields go fallow, allowing a refresh. Often we are too close to our own work to be able to notice it’s proper shape. Patience is a maddening virtue, believe me, but in literary endeavors it’s probably one of the more important ones.
Safe travels! Hope to meet you in the coming months!!