Info-Dumping in Memoir
In which I explain how a memoirist tells/how I tell back story
In media res - drop the reader into the middle of things and let her sort it out. No need to overly introduce the story. No need to provide elaborate backstory. Get into that action and play it out. What little bit you need from the past to move forward will be enough.
At least that’s the theory. It’s as old as Homer, dropped as we are into the argument, the fiery debate, in The Iliad about whether Greece should go to war with Troy and bring Helen back. (Did no one stop to ask her if she even wanted to come back?)
Memoir As Action Flick: “And . . . Scene!”
When one thinks of memoir, one hardly thinks action flick. Telling a life story, or even a portion of a life story, unless its the ascent of Mount Everest or some such adventure is a monument of cerebral energy. A life is made up of more calm and retrospective moments than action. Memoirs attempt to make sense of life’s turbulence.
My memoir is scenic, that is, it relies heavily on the scene, people who enter a room and some drama plays out, much drama, too much drama, fueled by borderline personality disorder, the cyclical drama of arguing about nothing, peaks and valleys over many many years attributable to we knew not what.
There was a marriage counselor who could not understand the source of our friction. At one point she said, “What if you both decided not to argue?” What a novel concept. That worked for a while and for two glorious years, we didn’t argue. We really had nothing to argue about - good jobs, good life, sailing, supportive family, summer vacations, no kids, an amazing dog.
And then there was the borderline personality disorder reveal itself. We were separated, separating, after almost 15 years together, after only 6 months sinking all of our money into a world-cruising sailboat and moving aboard. We had sold everything, downsizing completely. We had finally - FINALLY - paid off all our bills, except for the boat payment. It was a monumental achievement. We had a 5-year plan for working and saving and beefing up the boat for a world cruise. And in 3 separate instances, it became clear that the marriage was over. These events were important, are important to relate - the moment that “I love you” became “I hate you” is important.
Most important though was the BPD reveal. We didn’t know! THE COUNSELOR AND PSYCHIATRIST WHO DIAGNOSED MY EX WITH BPD FIVE YEARS EARLIER DID NOT TELL EITHER OF US. What?! What kind of insane doctoring is that? What kind of medical malfeasance fucks with people’s live like that? I had to educate myself about BPD and oh did I learn a hard lesson. We did everything wrong, exacerbated the situation with our ignorance. After that, nothing was salvagable, everything was reduced to ash and ruins. From 15 year relationship to divorced in less than a year with no reason given.
The Unforeseen Firing - Deux Ex Machina?
In 2005, a year after my brother committed suicide, my ex and I moved from Kansas to California. In two days, my brother (in Portland, Ore.) died, and her father (Sterling, VA) died. We were gathered around his bed watching him die when I got the call about my brother.
The grief counselors suggested that we not make any major life changes for a year following such trauma. Almost a year later, I was unceremoniously fired from a job, the victim of a conspiracy. Our office had applied for a new grant, had collected resumes and work histories from all of the employees to submit as part of the grant application. I submitted mine with all the rest. When it came time to staff the new grant, I was told my services were no longer required. My name had not even been submitted as potential personnel for the grant, submitted 6 months earlier. THEY KNEW! THEY KNEW AND YET DIDN’T TELL US! (The very definition of conspiracy.) I found out that I lost my job because my boss sent the new person to me, the person who was replacing me, to train. There’s a story there, of course.
We had a house, a mortgage, a life, ripped away. So we decided to look for new jobs in California. Nothing was holding us in Kansas anymore. Stepdaughter was grown and moved out of the house. The ex picked California, which was closer to my mom and a continent away from her own. She landed a job first and that settled it. So when she immediately resented moving to California farther away from her mom who she didn’t get along with and closer to my own - what? But… you chose California! You choosing AND resenting, how does that make sense? Cognitive dissonance boomed loudly like cannon fire in my ears.
Lighting Out for the Territories - A Westering
I had spent 15 years in Kansas, had pursued two graduate degrees and taken neither. Had been fired from a job. I had never been fired before. I had trained myself in web design and development and project management during a time when the buildout of the internet was in full swing. I had skill with writing and language and teaching. I had a life before I met my ex, and a life with her. We were 10 years in, surviving the arguing and tumult of the unknown cycles of BPD and raising a teenager. But we had survived.
On our drive from Kansas to California, she drove the big rented truck. We were downsizing from a 3,000 sq ft house to a 650 sq ft apartment. When most people in the early 2000s made 100s of thousands of dollars on their homes during the housing bubble, in the solid, slow market of Kansas, we made $100 after 3 years, not enough to invest in a new home. We became renters.
I had taken the drive from Albuquerque to Los Angeles many times by myself. We had taken the drive from Kansas to Los Angeles quite a few times ourselves for family vacations. This was different. This was a move, relocating, a westering, a return to my roots, to the roots that clutch. This was lighting out for the territories. This was the western migration of the Joads, seeking a new life and new hoope, jobs.
I felt unsteady and unsure driving the truck, so my ex drove. I took the time to stare out the window and reflect on where my life had taken me, where my life was taking me. It was the beginning of November. The land was gold. The wheat had been cut. Along the Rio Grande, the cottonwoods glowed bright yellow in the autumn sun. The parched land was dry from drought.
Road Trip Info-Dumping
In my memoir, I took the opportunity to describe the drive, much like Steinbeck does in the intercalary chapters of The Grapes of Wrath. My memoir is allusive, especially to “waste land” literature. I describe our westward migration from the passenger seat, something I wasn’t used to as I normally drove. During that time of great thought, between the description of the dry and fallow lands, I dredged up the important memories, rehashed what had come before - our first meeting in person (we had met on the internet), our first vacation together, our cyclical fighting, our commitment to get through the tough times together.
Is this info-dumping? How to explain the traumatic violence of cyclical fighting of the past as it impinges on the present, especially in the absence of a reason for that fighting? What was she always fighting about? We didn’t know what BPD was, no one had ever brought it up. I’d never heard of it before she asked me if I knew what it was. By that time it was too late.
When is it info-dumping and when is it necessary backstory? Drawing those lines in a memoir where everything is important seems like a futile task.
What do you think? How can you pull in necessary backstory in a way that’s not info-dumping? (This is where I let you do some of the work of writing this community blog!)
The trip west - further and further into the drought, the dry parched lands of the Fisher King irredeemable and leading us to our inevitable doom - was the perfect vehicle for providing some of those memories. Was it too much?
As I go through part 3 of my memoir - The Fire Sermon - which focuses on my 2nd marriage and its break up after 15 years and the extraordinary circumstances that led to its demise, I’m questioning, always questioning - what does my reader need vs what must I provide? The section of the memoir could have been a book itself. It was the most experimental, formally, of all the sections.
And now, it’s almost as if the fires that burned it have left ashes in its wake and we’re left with a skeleton of the story.
All of this is to say - I have thought about all of the metaphorical implications of every story told in my memoir. The Waste Land imagery and motifs, the Fisher King myth, the very real western drought of the early aughts and into the 2000-teens, each section heading of The Waste Land, each chapter of my book that uses a line from The Waste Land to build resonance - nothing has been left to chance. These are brush strokes, the paint deliberataely applied to create anew, a highly compressed and catalyzed art.
Once I’ve completed this move to Seattle, I will share more of my memoir with you.
For now, if you could please, recommend my newsletter to others, those interested in memoir, T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land,” mental health and mental illness - sucidie, major depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, writing, and the craft of writing - I would certainly appreciate it. The more subscribers and larger platform I have, the greater the possibility of finding a publisher.
I’m at the beginning of the querying process, as I’ve really just begun in earnest in May, but it’s time to get this book sold.
Thank you for following my path to traditional publication. Enjoy your weekend! I’ll see you on Monday for the last entry before we leave Atlanta for our new home in Seattle.
Until then, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing.