The Making of a Memoir - First Attempts
How I found my way into memoir from biography
Hello! I hope you and yours are safe and enjoying the turn of the weather as we head into summer. Here in Atlanta, it’s getting steamy. We’ve shifted our walks to the morning, which pulls me out of bed far too early. But I’m surviving - thank you, coffee!
But the early morning hour is becoming even buggier. Soon, we’ll have to walk at midnight or before the sun comes up for it to be pleasant enough outside. I can’t wait for our move to the Pacific Northwest, though, a steady dose of cold is not to my liking either. I much prefer sandy beaches, boats, and tropical weather with the occasional rain shower. Once my book sells and skyrockets to the top of the best seller list, I’ll let you know where I land. Until then, I’m not holding my breath.
How I Landed Upon Memoir
When I uncovered the connection between my writing and The Waste Land, my excitement bubbled over like a kid on the last day of school before summer vacation. That’s when I knew I had writing that could be public, something that could be for more than just me. Although I had read some memoirs, I didn’t know a lot about memoir as craft or as genre.
That’s where I started. I began devouring books about the craft of writing memoir and began reading as many memoirs as I could.
I took a trip to Barnes and Noble in New Haven, the Yale bookstore, to survey the shelves for memoir. Most of what I found were books by women focused on devastating life stories - drug addiction, eating disorders, child sexual abuse, spousal abuse, alcoholism, mental illnesses, unhappy marriages, extreme poverty. There were a few memoirs by men who detailed difficult life experiences, but less on the abuse or drug/alcohol abuse front. What I was looking for were books like mine. Was I writing something unique, original?
Where were the books tied to a literary work, like mine was tied to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land? Where were the books by people focused on family around them who had drug or alcohol problems or mental illnesses? And at first glance, I couldn’t find any. I thought, “Okay, I have something that can reach others. I’m not the only one whose family has suffered extreme mental illnesses and survived. I’m not the only one whose life has been pushed off course by the mental illnesses, alcoholism, and narcissism of others. But where are the books?”
I found two books that approximate what I have lived through, and even then, they’re only tangentially similar. Both are by writers. They have literary flair and a keen eye to language that writers are interested in.
Greg Bottoms’ Angelhead: My Brother’s Descent into Madness is a slim volume, focused on Bottom’s older brother who slides into paranoid schizophrenia. His brother’s problems overwhelm his family and him. He tells the story of his brother from the outside, as one only can.
It’s similar to what I experienced about my own brother’s mental illness, except Lynn had Major Depressive Disorder, and he had it for 13 years before finally committing suicide on that dark night on that tall bridge over the Willamette River. I had very little insight into my brother’s condition. I had grown apart from my brother, though we shared a close bond like twins are said to possess. We didn’t talk as openly as we perhaps should have about mental illness in our family, so whatever my parents were privy to about my brother was taken to the grave when they died.
I tried to get a hold of my brother’s psychiatrist records, but since he still has two surviving daughters, they are considered next of kin and their permission is required for their release. I do not have a relationship at this time with either of my nieces and haven’t for years as I’m estranged from almost my entire family.
The other book that is similar is Michael Greenberg’s Hurry Down Sunshine documenting his daughter’s explosion into bipolar disorder when she was 15 years old. It’s a riveting account of how a father must cope with his daughter’s illness. This book is a very focused look at that one summer in which his daughter becomes full blown manic and psychotic and the attempts to control this devastating disorder. It’s another look at mental illness from the outside.
But these were the only two memoirs I could find that focused on extreme mental illness of family members from the outside. My book had more in common with Greg Bottom’s because of the focus on brothers. But my book is similar to Michael Greenberg’s in its literary language and that so much else was going on in my life - it wasn’t just my brother’s illness that I’m writing about.
My story is larger, more epic in scope, and thus has that connection to the epic flavor of Eliot’s The Waste Land.
I’ve since read much more about the craft of memoir and many more memoirs. But those comps (book with which to compare my own work) are still the closest I’ve come to my own efforts. I’ve also compared myself to the highly successful Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a book I greatly admire. In earlier drafts, my memoir had much more experimentation with form, much like Eggers’. But Eggers’ work has a unique voice that mine perhaps lacks. The “voice” in my work mimics the voices in Eliot’s poem, drawing from it the themes and imagery and motifs of each section to fill in what happened in my story. I also compared my work to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, only insofar as I’m also a teacher who never had time to write because I was busy with the business of teaching and grading, which becomes a part of my story. That’s a very tenuous connection, comparing author circumstances, since my life doesn’t contain one bit of Irish squalor in it.
At the Atlanta Writer’s Conference, I learned that agents look for comps in the 2-3 year old range. The 4 comps above are outside of that range. One other work is similar and that’s In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado, with its focus on abuse in relationships in the LGBTQ community. There is a connection in my story to such abuse, played out in far different ways than in Machado’s work. But Machado also plays with form as I do, and thus, that’s a fair comp with my own efforts.
Querying Begins Again
I’m heading into the next stage of querying. I’ve identified 10 more agents interested in representing memoir. I’ve made appointments with two professionals to discuss help with writing a query letter and with helping a first-time author get connected to an agent or publisher. Those meetings (a phone call and a zoom call) will happen this coming Wednesday. On Friday, I’ll report back on what happens then.
Exciting times!
Stay well everyone. Happy summer. The world keeps spinning. Find your spot of sunshine, and soak up happiness where you might be. Spread that warmth around - the world needs it.
Thanks for reading.
Please share this post with others and with your friends. The more eyeballs I have, the higher a chance I have for gaining traditional publication for my memoir.
Until then, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing!