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Memoirs Show Two Sides of the Islamic Revolution

Friday, August 20th, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

I have always loved escaping into a good book. In my younger years, I escaped into the invented world of fiction. Nowadays, I escape into the lives of real people, through whose eyes I see a different view of my own world. Two memoirs I read within the same month provide a perfect example of this educational benefit. Ed Husain’s “The Islamist” took me inside the Islamist movement in Britain, and Nazara Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran” showed life in Iran under Islamist rule. The knowledge I learned in one book deepened my understanding of the other, amplifying the value of each.

Ed Husain, “The Islamist”

Ed Husain was a teenager in Great Britain in the early 1990s. His parents and most of his neighbors were immigrants from Bangladesh. In fact, he didn’t have any white friends. His family’s spiritual approach to the Muslim religion cultivated a prayerful, almost mystical atmosphere in his home life. Then, as a teenager, Husain fell in with a crowd of boys from the Indian sub-continent who felt prayer was obsolete. Their goal was to overthrow Westernized governments and create the kind of world God intended, one all-encompassing Islamic state. At first, Husain’s loyalty was torn between his parents and his new friends. Gradually he aligned with his activist peers, fighting against Western values such as freedom and democracy.

The Islamists didn’t want their anti-Western message to be the dominant one. They wanted it to be the only one. When other activities were scheduled on campus, Husain and his friends stayed up late into the night creating plans to disrupt the competing event. They agreed in advance on the lies they would tell to make themselves look innocent and divert attention from their predatory practices. Whenever pressed on their unethical or manipulative behavior, they quickly shifted the conversation to global politics, claiming all their actions were caused by colonialism. I was especially intrigued by their coaching to “speak sharply,” to create an aura of fury and righteousness around their words. Between their angry tone, their rehearsed lies, and their instant shift to global politics, they controlled, and won, debates among the young Muslims on campus who were struggling to find their own path.

Azar Nafisi, “Reading Lolita in Tehran”

After reading about Ed Husain’s firebrand belief that Islamic law should take over the world, I read a memoir by Azar Nafisi, an Iranian girl who grew up under the secular government of Shah Pahlavi. The Shah promoted Western culture and violently suppressed opposing Muslim groups, earning a reputation as a ruthless tyrant in some circles and a forward-looking leader in others.

Taking advantage of the respect afforded to women in Iranian society, Nafisi attended college in the United States to study English Literature. Like many other intellectuals in the 1970s, she took part in the anti-U.S. demonstrations that pervaded campuses in the wake of the Vietnam war. She rallied against Western culture and especially agitated for the removal of Shah Pahlavi who was denounced as a “pawn of the West.” In a classic case of “be careful what you wish for,” within a few years, her revolutionary dream came true. Shortly after she returned to Iran in 1979, the Shah was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini took over, bringing into power an Islamist government similar to the one Ed Husain would be advocating 15 years later.

Iran’s fundamentalist rulers quickly squeezed out so-called “decadent elements.” Reminiscent of the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, bands of armed young men patrolled the streets looking for women who dared walk with an unrelated man, who had a wisp of hair showing from beneath her veil, or who possessed cosmetics in her handbag. Women were flogged, imprisoned, and executed for such crimes. Nafisi lost her teaching position for refusing to wear the veil.

Two sides of the same page

The two books cover the Islamist movement from two entirely different perspectives and in two vastly different styles. Husain’s journey from boy to man leads him to street corners where edgy, pressured boys hand out fliers and engage in aggressive rhetoric. Later, after Husain distances himself from the movement, he begins a historical investigation trying to tease apart these two threads of his religion. In ancient writings, he discovers the religion of his father, the one that encourages an introspective, worshipful relationship to God. Husain also tracks the political aspect of the religion, and shows how it emerged in the twentieth century through the inflammatory writings of a few men who have had an increasing influence, especially on young Muslims in recent decades. While these men claim ancient authority, Husain finds their thinking to be more closely aligned to Karl Marx than to the Koran.

Nafisi is driven by ideas, too, but of a very different variety. She seeks her wisdom in English Literature. On her tongue, passages from Vladimir Nabokov and F. Scott Fitzgerald come alive, providing a rich poetic subtext to her own narrative. Her compatriots are the young women who have been forced by the Islamist Revolution to hide their femininity and enter the university through a separate door so they can be searched for cosmetics. When her girls come to a private literature class held in her home, they remove their scarves and Nafisi sensually describes their locks of hair. She bites into pastry, pours coffee over ice cream, and, above all, revels in the delicious pleasures of her beloved literature. Whereas Husain’s investigation is done with the protection of the democratic freedoms of Great Britain, Nafisi’s drama plays out in a police state, where students are seized and held in secret and summarily executed in the night because they showed signs of “Western decadence.”

The Muslim religion doesn’t need to be this way

In college, when Husain saw a boy murdered, he realized his terrible mistake. He started to suspect Islamism wasn’t promoting religion after all, but was merely using religious ideas to promote a political agenda. Trying to clarify these conflicting ideas, he moved to the Middle East to learn Arabic so he could read the Koran in its original language. In the Prophet’s teachings, he found an introspective, mystical religion which teaches a personal relationship with God and respect for people, including women and non-Muslims. Based on his findings, Husain returned to the prayerful beliefs of his parents. Through his writings, public appearances, and participation in the British government, he promotes democratic ideals, and raises awareness of the dangers of this divisive movement.

Two books weave a fascinating story

Before I read these books, I only knew about Islamism and life inside Iran from news bites and articles. After accompanying each author through years of personal, in-depth experience, I understand so much more. On one end of this matched set, I saw the Islamist ideas Ed Husain found so invigorating and urgent. I felt his pulse quicken as he rose to the challenge of dominating the world. On the other end, I saw how these very ideas were forged by the men of Iran into bars that imprisoned Azar Nafisi and her students, and stole their freedom and dignity.

The End

Writing Prompt
If you have been part of a political or a religious movement, your memories might seem insignificant, as if you were swept up in something of which you were a tiny part. But these events may have affected millions of people. Your feelings and observations as a believer and participant could offer a valuable contribution to social discussion. List or journal a few notes about the forces that influenced your life and look for scenes that would portray these experiences in your memoir.

Note
For another book that sheds light on the difference between the Muslim faith and the Islamist movement, read Greg Mortenson’s memoir, Three Cups of Tea. Click here for my essay on that powerful story.
“Find meaning through service” or “Making peace with the peasants of Pakistan”

Book Links
The Islamist, Why I became an Islamic Fundamentalist, What I Saw Inside, and Why I Left by Ed Husain

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Note
As Husain was growing up to become a young man, he was swept up in a political movement that preached not only the domination of the world, but also the domination of women. This reminds me of another memoir I read, a year ago. Frank Schaeffer, on his way through adolescence, also experienced an exploding interest in ideas that place women in a subservient position. Schaeffer, author of “Crazy for God” grew up in a spiritually oriented Christian commune in Switzerland in the 1960s. As he entered adulthood, his focus shifted from God to women’s reproductive systems. Using his father’s extensive political connections, Schaeffer brought his intense interest in abortion into the heart of U.S. politics, where they took root in the religious right. Maybe Freud was right. Maybe it is all about sex.

See my article about Frank Schaeffer’s memoir by clicking here: One man’s battle with sexuality changed the world

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

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Posted in Book Review, Social Activism, Women | 2 Comments »

5 More Memoir Book Reviews

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

Here are five more memoir books for your reading list. It’s a motley assortment, built up from a combination of bookstore browsing, word-of-mouth, and availability through audible.com. (I listen to a lot of books.) Feel free to add your recommendations or comments.

Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies by Stewart Copeland
Stewart Copeland played the drums so well he helped propel the band “The Police” to rock and roll success in the 1980s. The memoir, “Strange Things Happen,” centers on the tour the group took when they regrouped in 2007. In addition to nostalgia value for fans, the book has interesting features for anyone interested in musical culture. I was intrigued by his insider look at the “tribal energy” of live performance, of what it felt like to be driving a crowd into a rock and roll frenzy. He gives an excellent inside look at the production of a concert tour. I enjoyed his detailed description of his interest in the sport of polo. And I was intrigued by his self-promotion instincts — for example, he saved his old tapes, he created a movie which cross-promotes the band and this book, and he unashamedly pitches and promotes himself every chance he gets. Surely there must be lessons in there somewhere for us internet author-entrepreneurs.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
This is a deliciously written book by a refined woman, about teaching English literature to a class full of students who have basically become prisoners of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. “So many teenagers were executed,” she says. Their crime was Western decadence. A typical charge was “promoting prostitution.” One young man felt aroused by a girl whose scarf revealed a patch of white skin. He had the girl expelled from the university for this offense against the revolution. From the modern secular society Iran had become under the previous ruler, the country was now plunged into chaos in the name of religion. Azar Nafisi uses literature to inform her students, as well as her readers, about the power of reading as an escape and a commentary on this life. It’s a fabulous insight into the role of the university and “the intelligentsia” in movements of social change.

Match dot bomb by Francine Pappadis Friedman
The author’s husband died when she was in her late 40′s, too old to be young, and too young to be old. She assumed she would live alone, but pressure from her friends caused her to reconsider. She entered the internet dating market, and this memoir is her journey through a series of disastrous dates. What does it feel like to be a widow, starting  over? The book demonstrated once again the power of memoirs to open a window into a different slice of life. In addition to the dates, she offers a lovely portrayal of her relationship with her supportive girl friends. And the book contains an excellent flash-back of her childhood visit to her grandparents in Greece. The book has a lovely, polished feel – well written and crafted, and excellently edited.

Tis: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
This memoir picks up where McCourt’s first memoir, “Angela’s Ashes” left off, making it an excellent example of a memoir sequel. In this one, he tries to settle in and establish his life in New York City. Like his previous memoir, this one has tremendous authorial voice, resonating with McCourt’s signature inner dialog. He is a great observer of the immigrant melting pot experience. Everyone keeps telling him to “stick with his own kind.” He recounts many excellent stories about teaching in high school. Inch by inch, McCourt blends into society, grows older, and satisfies the American Dream, not in easy storybook fashion, but through the messy hard work of years.

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
This memoir is about a boy without a father, who struggles to make sense of his life. He is fascinated by the men who hang out at the neighborhood bar, many of whom are just getting by. When the author goes to Yale, his buddies in the bar celebrate, but they don’t want him to get too far ahead. It’s one of the more downbeat memoirs I’ve read, with several redeeming factors. The protagonist wants to pursue a career in writing, and his entry into the writing life is a good story. Another interesting feature of the memoir is that he’s a kid with no direction and then he goes to Yale. By coincidence, that is exactly what happened to Mark Salzman in the memoir “Lost in Place.” Finally, J.R. Moehringer is the ghost writer of one of my favorite memoirs, Andre Agassi’s “Open.”

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To learn about my 200 page workbook about overcoming psychological blocks to writing, click here.

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Posted in Book Review | 2 Comments »

Courage to Write, Passion to Read

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

Robert Waxler found his athletically active son, Jeremy, on the floor, unable to move his legs. Rushed, to a hospital, doctors first suspected a back injury. Tests revealed it to be more sinister, requiring emergency surgery. The memoir “Courage to Walk” by Robert Waxler starts like a medical thriller, but soon the lens of the book widens to include the family’s search for emotional survival. Jeremy’s medical crisis awakened echoes of a previous tragedy. Twelve years earlier, Jeremy’s older brother Jonathan died from a heroin overdose. Now, Robert and his wife Linda had to face a new trial.

The book blurb forms a contract with the reader

Before I even purchased the book, I knew from the blurb that the author was an English Literature professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. I knew that “Courage to Walk,” was about the crippling and potentially deadly illness of a second son, and I knew about the death of Robert and Linda’s oldest son, Jonathan.

This preliminary information not only motivated me to buy and read the book. It also set my expectations for what I would encounter inside. I was looking forward to learning about the relationship between this father and his son, and I wanted to learn more about the private emotions of a man who earned his living as an intellectual. Since Waxler had written two memoirs, I had the added incentive that if I liked one, I could also read the other.

Courage to Live, To Love, and To Write

The title “Courage to Walk” refers to the son’s courage to reclaim the use of his legs and return to his place in society. However, there are other forms of courage in evidence. Robert Waxler lived for twelve years under the burden of his previous loss and now he must cope with this new danger. While Jeremy was struggling to stand up physically, Robert Waxler struggled to stand up emotionally in a world that threatened to swallow the ones he loved.

Like any memoir writer, I imagine this author struggled with the dilemma of how much of his private life to share. And since college professors are being paid to tell students how the world works, I imagine he would have even more incentive to hide his vulnerability. The fact that Robert Waxler chose to reveal this family struggle makes his memoir an exquisite example not only in the courage to walk, but also the courage to write.

Professors and emotions

When I started reading “Courage to Walk” I assumed this professor would adhere to my stereotype that “intellectuals hide in their ivory tower.” Suspicious of his ability to express emotion, I was overly critical at first of his occasional literary references. For example, he inserted a poem by Emily Dickenson. “Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune–without the words, and never stops at all.”

“Interesting,” I thought. “But what does Waxler think?”

To explore the suffering a parent must undergo, he quoted Simone Weil’s interpretation of the Bible. Weil said, “A mother, a wife, if they know the person they love is in distress will … suffer some equivalent distress.”

“Yes,” I thought. “I can appreciate this point that a parent would suffer, but why quote Simone Weil?” As I became accustomed to Waxler’s style my prejudice faded and I realized that the quotes were not creating distance between us at all. In fact, they invited me into his inner life. Upon reflection, it made perfect sense that Robert Waxler’s self-portrait ought to include a love of books, poetry, and plays. The references added depth to his character and through the course of the book, I saw how he used literature as a container large enough to include both passionate love and soul-crushing worry.

I thought of the poet William Blake, about whom Robert Waxler wrote his doctoral thesis. William Blake illustrated his poetry with etchings to offer readers an additional window into his soul. Robert Waxler achieved a similar purpose, showing me how other authors embellished his thoughts.

Waxler’s passion for books leaps around the world

While Jeremy Waxler was confined to his room, he read a pile of books. Robert listed the titles of the book, explaining their value for his son. “Like medicine on a shelf, these books need to be taken in and digested by a sensitive reader, and Jeremy is just that kind of reader, the kind that lets language seep deep through the skin and permeate the heart. Such reading gives him buoyancy, a lightness of being. Good books stir his blood and transport him to some other place.” Father and son shared this passion. Books were their common love.

I too am a lover of books. During my college years, I often saw the world in terms of the book in which I was currently immersed. After I graduated, few people in my life were interested in what I was reading, and my literary interest went into hiding. “Courage to Walk” reminds me that I’m not the only one with this impulse to turn toward books for sustenance.

This discovery comes at a perfect time for me. Thanks to blogging, I have been able to share my love for books with a larger crowd than at any time since I was a university student. With access to the purported billion plus people on the internet, bibliophiles everywhere can trade notes, enjoy each other’s company, and spread the word. Book lovers unite!

Writing Prompt for Memoir Readers
What memoirs make it onto your reading list? Look at the memoirs you recently read. What did you know about the author and his or her story that pulled you to read it? What similarities or differences with your own situation added to your curiosity? What questions did you hope to answer about the human condition in general or the author’s situation in particular?

Writing Prompt for Memoir Writers
In your own life or your memoir-in-progress, consider what your book blurb will tell potential readers about the journey they are about to embark on. What special audience might be interested in unique features in your story such as job, cultural or family background, geographical community, or some other special interest group? Brainstorm freely, and see which items would catch your eye if you came upon this book while browsing.

Note
While Robert Waxler’s last name interests me, we are not related.

Links

To read Part 1 of my interview with Robert Waxler, click here.
To read Part 2 of my interview with Robert Waxler, click here.
To read Part 3 of my interview with Robert Waxler, click here.

Amazon pages for Robert Waxler’s books

Losing Jonathan by Robert Waxler and Linda Waxler
Courage to Walk by Robert Waxler

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To learn about my 200 page workbook about overcoming psychological blocks to writing, click here.

Check out the programs and resources at the National Association of Memoir Writers

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Posted in Book Review, Family, Grief/Loss | 1 Comment »

Learn the inner and outer dimensions of memoir writing

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

I have been a fan of Linda Joy Myers ever since I read her memoir “Don’t Call Me Mother.” (Also see my essay “Mothers and Daughters Don’t Always Mix“) The book was straightforward and elegant, transforming a painful past into a compelling story. When I reached out to learn more about how she wrote it, she explained that writing the memoir was itself a journey that lasted more than a decade. During that period, she developed a more sophisticated understanding of her own childhood and at the same time learned the craft of storytelling.

Linda Joy wanted to share these benefits with others so she offered memoir writing workshops and then started the National Association of Memoir Writers, an organization that offers courses, teleseminars, support, and other benefits to aspiring memoir writers everywhere.

I already knew that Linda Joy brings compassion and insight to the memoir field, so I was eager to read her new book “The Power of Memoirs, Writing Your Healing Story.” The book covers the basics of scene and plot to help writers weave the skein of events into a story worth reading. It also offers valuable tips for writers you won’t find in other books, such as insight into the knack of accepting feedback from a critique group, in my opinion one of the most important tools any writer can have.

And then, Linda Joy goes beyond craft and turns inward towards the heart of the matter. As a professional psychotherapist, Linda Joy helps her clients work through their memories. In this book, she performs a similar service for aspiring memoir writers. In hefty, substantive chapters like “Psychology of Memoir Writing,” “The Dark Stuff,” and “The Power of Writing to Heal” Linda Joy provides excellent guidance to help you decipher your memories and bring them to the page.

Families matter

A key goal of a memoir is to portray other characters in your life. This can be especially complex when trying to explain parents, grandparents, and siblings who were influencing you while you were under construction. They are part of you. And so, the more you understand those relationships the better you understand yourself. “The Power of Memoir” offers tips about how to write about family. By seeing them through the eyes of a writer, you will gain fresh perspectives and piece together a more sensible story about your family than the one that was shapelessly tangled in memory.

Spirituality

I have been searching for years to find language to express the spirituality of life. Linda Joy’s “Power of Memoir” contains a superb section about this topic. When writing a memoir, we review our past and explore the way we were influenced by our higher power, our religious framework, and other aspects of the inner connections known broadly as “spirituality.”

However, the past is not the only time frame at work here. You actually write the memoir in the present, a journey that both require spiritual strength and generates it. Linda Joy lovingly offers guidance that fosters this connection with the inner self, to help you get in touch with spirituality right here and now.

Psychology Research

While many authors and teachers observe the healing nature of memoir writing, these observations do not constitute the kind of scientific research that would support its use as a form of therapy. To find such evidence, Linda Joy turns to the research of psychologist James Pennebaker from the University of Texas who has spent his academic career studying this question. His research offers a fascinating look at the emotional benefits of writing. Linda Joy also cites brain imaging research that offers additional evidence for these benefits.

This book will help you write yours

So whether you want to write your memoir because you are curious about yourself, or you want to heal old hurts, or you want to share your journey with other people, or you want to strengthen your brain, or you consider writing to be a wonderful hobby, or you wish to publish a book and enter the stream of culture – for any of these reasons, you will benefit from traveling in Linda Joy’s company while discovering the Healing Power of your own memoir.

—

Home page for Power of Memoir

Click here to read my essay about Linda Joy’s Memoir, Don’t Call Me Mother

“Don’t Call Me Mother” Amazon Link

Click for my essay about Linda Joy’s Memoir

Read an interview with Linda Joy Myers here.

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on this blog, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

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Posted in Book Review, Spirituality/Transcendence, therapy | 4 Comments »

A leader of memoir writers tells her own story

Monday, March 29th, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

I have long admired Linda Joy Myers as a thought-leader in the memoir movement. In addition to writing an amazing memoir about her own journey, she is the founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers which brings resources and support to anyone who wants to develop the story of their life. Now she has added another contribution to the field with her book, “The Power of Memoir: Writing Your Healing Story.” In this interview, I ask Linda Joy to share more thoughts about her journey as a writer and teacher.

Jerry Waxler: When did you first become interested in writing your memoir?

Linda Joy Myers: At first, I wrote my stories as journal entries and poetry. My inner critic was very noisy and nasty, so I kept my writing small and private. For a while, I was confused about whose story I was telling. Because my story is about three generations, actually about five generations of mothers and daughters, I didn’t know where to start. I wrote two novel length versions that had to do with of the imagined story of my great-grandmother, born in 1873, three years before Custer’s Last Stand. And I wanted to explore the early life of my grandmother who was raising me. I knew her as an older woman, when she would tell me the stories of her early life, but her most interesting story she tried to keep from me: her elopement when she was 16! It caused quite a scandal.

My story? Well, it took one of my mentors to invite me to tell my own story, which I hadn’t yet claimed. I was raised with huge admonitions against “airing the dirty laundry” of the family, and my story would definitely do that. It was hard to break all those rules! So it took many years, lots of classes, and lots of “I’m NOT going to write this darn thing.” As I tell people, the memoir kept chasing me until I turned around and agreed to write it. When I did, the old ghosts became silent. I suppose it helped that those who would get upset at me for telling the family tales were dead. Well, most of them. Some of my extended family eventually freaked out that I had written a memoir, even though I left their dastardly deeds out of consideration and respect. Now I might write it all, as I have nothing to lose. So there might be another memoir someday.

JW: When you did you first become interested in teaching others how to write memoirs?

LJM: One day I stumbled upon the research that Dr. James Pennebaker and other psychologists were doing on the healing power of writing stories. Time stopped as I sat there at my desk, enthralled,  everything silent, as energy rushed through my body. I began searching for all the research on the topic I could find–this was in 1999-2000. I called Dr. Pennebaker to find out more, and I met him in person. Inspired, I began teaching therapists how they could use writing to help clients, using Xeroxed memoir stories from my favorite memoirs and articles about the writing as healing research. In these workshops I was blown away by the stories that came out of people who were not “writers.” I decided to write my first book “Becoming Whole–Writing Your Healing Story” to share the great news of the research and the amazing stories that came out of my workshops. Teaching people “the good news” was the most fun I’d had in a long time.

JW: You have said in interviews for your own memoir “Don’t Call me Mother” that you made huge sweeping changes, even throwing out a manuscript and starting over. It sounds like you were burning with creative desire to tell that story well. Could you say more about the sheer length and persistence of this effort for you? What kept you going?

LJM: I worked on the memoir for more than a decade, and during most of that time I was still trying to heal. I got stuck a lot, and quit working on it many times, feeling defeated and overwhelmed by how hard it was to write when the issue I was trying to heal was still being lived out. My mother continued her abandonment of me and her grandchildren, and I discovered how little she claimed us all when she was dying. None of her few friends in Chicago had any idea she had a daughter or grandchildren! So the situation of being denied and abandoned was a continuous wound. I envisioned my book as being able to help others with similar situations.

After my mother’s death, I had a new version of my story, finally feeling some resolution, and became serious about finishing the book. After many agents passed on it, I needed to see it published, so I and a couple of friends started our own publishing company, and we each published our work.

As I prepared the final versions and edits of “Don’t Call Me Mother,” I saw the through line of the narrative, and the theme became clear. I edited out all the pieces that didn’t fit the theme, which turned out to be about 56,000 words. Actually, it felt like a relief to cut it down to size, and I felt happy about finally finishing the story. The editing process and getting a completed book was as healing as writing it.

JW: I read an interview with Mary Karr, author of “The Liar’s Club” in which she talks about how vulnerable kids are. Typically, people only talk about this vulnerability in therapist’s offices. When the memoir wave started, people started to write and read about their vulnerable childhood in books. As a teacher of memoir writing, how do you feel about your clients “coming out of the closet” so to speak and writing about these exquisitely private scenes? Does it help? Is it scary?

LJM: These kinds of books about abuse were being written in the 1980s, but memoirs were not popularized as literature until Tobias Wolff’s “This Boy’s Life” or Mary Karr’s “Liar’s Club,” among others.

As a teacher and coach, I see people digging deep into truths never before shared with a living soul. We in the groups feel honored that we are allowed to witness this kind of courage–the  survival skills of our writing partners and the amazing spirit of determination that many people need just to grow up, to live, and to move forward in their lives.

I am humbled and moved each week by their bravery and willingness to put the truth on the page and share it with us. My students tell me frequently how their lives have changed because of this writing, along with the witnessing and compassion they received in the workshop. One woman tells me that she loves her mother now, but when we started, she could barely stand to be in the same room with her.  She wrote both the dark and the light stories about her family, and integrated a whole new relationship with her elderly mother. I love outcomes like this, and she is one of many.

JW: In your therapy work, what seeds do you plant that might help people use the medium of writing to help them organize their thoughts and emotions?

LJM: Most of my therapy clients do very little writing, but when they do, they find it helpful and are often surprised at what shows up in their journal. They focus on significant scenes where they’re stuck, the turning point moments of trauma that even after years of work keep haunting them. They sometimes write during the session, which helps them to focus, or they bring in their journal or dreams. The problem is that most people write very abstractly, but when I can convince them to use scenes, they really do write differently and with more healing power. I talk about the healing power of scene writing in “The Power of Memoir.”

JW: It seems that when someone first starts writing a memoir, they ought to have a background in psychology. By the time they finish their memoir, they need expertise in creative writing and literature. How do you steer through these two aspects of memoir writing?

LJM: When I studied literature it seemed so obvious to me that writing had a psychological component, but in the lit classes this was almost never acknowledged. I’d always thought I wanted to bring the two together somehow, but for a long time couldn’t see how to do it. I kept working on my own writing, and then the studies by Dr. Pennebaker and others were published. After I discovered that exciting research, I had a sense of how to integrate my version of healing and psychology with writing–through writing healing stories.

JW: In coming years, how do you see the memoir writing trend balancing between the two disciplines of introspection and literature?

LJM: It’s hard to predict if memoir writing is a brief trend or if the interest in other people’s stories will continue. Perhaps we are all voyeurs at heart. After all, in previous times, people were not cut off from each other the way we are now, in our boxy houses, in front of TVs or computers all the time. People gathered together and knew each other’s business, for better or worse. They helped each other learn from life and each other about how to live. Extended families and communities had a lot of interaction, input, and guidance. People knew what was going on behind most of the closed doors. I wonder if some of that is missing now. Perhaps memoirs throw open those closed doors and invite us all in to see what is going on, to learn how others are living. Perhaps memoirs are fulfilling some kind of universal social need. We’ll see.

JW: I love the “voice” of your book “The Power of Memoir.” For example, in the lovely sections on how memoirs relate to family and to spirituality, you offer a great deal of focused information in clear, easily accessible language. How did you find this particular voice or style?  Did you experiment? Did you workshop your nonfiction voice?

LJM: I am unaware of my “voice.” It just comes out the way it comes out. It is my voice I guess. I used to be confused about what “voice” meant, thinking that I had to do something special to create a “voice.” But we don’t. However, we do need to keep practicing our writing to get comfortable enough with our ideas and themes to earn the voice that really belongs to us. I don’t think writers should worry about their voice. They just need to write, to say what is true for them, and keep learning about grammar, syntax, and writing skills. And, it’s really important to read good literature of all kinds–fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Watch good films, and view real art. All of the arts feed our souls and influence our writing.

JW: What are you working on next?

LJM: I’m starting to put together a proposal for a book that will help young adults write a memoir. My agent Verna Dreisbach has created a wonderful organization called “Capitol City Writers” that presents programs for young people to help them learn about all aspects of writing help to give them a head start with their writing career. I used to work with families in crisis and loved working with the youth in those families. Young people already have so many stories they need to tell. You do not have to be old to write a memoir. Even a ten year old has stories. If we can create a book that encourages and helps young writers, that would be terrific. Right now the idea is still in the creative imagination.

For links to all of Linda Joy Myers’ work, click here.

Click here to see my review of “Power of Memoir”

Click here to read more about Capitol City Writers

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on this blog, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

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Posted in Associations/Training, Author Interview, Book Review | 5 Comments »

10 More Brief Book Reviews for Memoir Readers and Writers

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

Here are ten more of the memoirs I have read in my research to learn about people and their stories. To see a longer list, click here.

“This Boy’s Life: A Memoir” by Tobias Wolff

“This Boy’s Life” is a story of a young boy growing up with a single mom.  It’s a Coming of Age tale that pried open the door and started allowing in stories of ordinary people, presaging the Memoir Revolution. (He was noted as Alice Sebold’s Creative Nonfiction professor in her memoir “Lucky.”) By publishing the story of his childhood, Wolff offers our generation a new opportunity to explore that period of our own lives.

She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel

This is about an ordinary girl living in a small town in the Midwest. Her brilliant authorial voice commands attention and offers entertainment. It’s an excellent example of how great storytelling can turn ordinary life into compelling reading. It’s also a good example of a memoir sequel, following Kimmel’s first equally engaging memoir “A Girl Named Zippy.”

“What I know for sure, My story of growing up in America” by Tavis Smiley

This is a classic tale of rising from poverty into fabulous success through the power of personal charm, hard work and relentless ambition. Unique features of the book include a highly disciplined black family in a mostly white town in the Midwest, and a crossover story of a black man succeeding in white America, starting with his election as class president of his almost all-white high school. In addition, it is an example of a ghost or co-written book with David Ritz.

“The Liar’s Club: A Memoir” by Mary Karr

Mary Karr grew up in a complex childhood filled with emotional drama, including alcohol, mental breakdown, and economic hardship. But equal to the power of her circumstances is the power of her voice. It is one of the most commanding voices of any memoir I have read, filled with clever observations that ring true. Her insights provide a new way of experiencing childhood. I would go anywhere with Karr, which is why I ordered her second memoir, Cherry. (I’m falling behind. She has already released her third.) I consider “Liar’s Club” to be one of the canonical Coming of Age tales that launched the revolution. (Others are “Glass Castle,” by Jeanette Walls, “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt, and “This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff.)

“The Last Lecture,” Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow

Randy Pausch was invited to give a “last lecture” at Carnegie Mellon University, not because he was retiring but dying of pancreatic cancer. In his lecture, he shared wisdom he acquired during his brilliant but brief career as a professor. The lessons were picked up by Wall Street Journal Columnist Jeff Zaslow and turned into a book called “The Last Lecture” in which Pausch shared his experience of life in short essays that translate life experience into rule the reader could live by.

The fact that the book was so fabulously successful is a testament to Pausch’s insights. Its popularity also hints at an unspoken respect for those who offer wisdom as they approach death. Like a hero soldier who throws himself on a grenade, offering a model of superhuman generosity as his final legacy, Zaslow proves you can do good things even when you are going to die.

“The Kids are All Right: A memoir” by Diana Welch, Liz Welch, Amanda Welch, Dan Welch

“The Kids are all Right” was written by an ensemble cast of four siblings. Their mom was a Soap Opera star so it may look at first like this is a “celebrity memoir,” in which case the only reason to read it would be to learn more about mom. But the memoir doesn’t belong to the mom but to her four children who, after both parents died, had to come of age in challenging circumstances. It’s an example of the experience of becoming orphaned, an example of the transition from privilege to suffering and confusion. It’s an example of a memoir written from more than one voice. And it is a portrait of siblings who turned towards each other in order to survive adversity.

“True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall” by Mark Salzman

Mark Salzman was a successful author who volunteered to teach creative writing to violent juvenile offenders. As he teaches them to write, they teach him who they are and how they landed in this prison, offering an amazing window into their world, their dreams, their youth and confusion, and their suffering. It’s also a window into the power of writing to reveal inner worlds. The author authentically reproduces street language, and captures individual voice tone and rhythm, slouches and expressions. Judging from the title of the memoir, it’s an amazing display of how a writer can use writer’s notebooks to capture the tone of real experience.

The book raises awareness about a segment of our population that most of try to shut out of our mind. The author was recruited into this work by Sister Janet Harris, of the Inside Out Writers program, an organization in Los Angeles that tries to humanize imprisoned kids.

“Teach with Your Heart: Lessons I Learned from The Freedom Writers” by Erin Gruwell

This is the memoir of Erin Gruwell, the mastermind behind the Freedom Writers, a band of Los Angeles high school students who delved into the meaning of their lives by writing and sharing their diaries. In “Teach With Your Heart” Erin Gruwell offers deeper insight into a world I have already started learning about. Combined with “The Freedom Writers Diary” book and movie, I now have an excellent appreciation for Gruwell’s work and her world.

Click here to see my essay about the Freedom Writers Diary.

“Thrumpton Hall: A Memoir of Life in My Father’s House” by Miranda Seymour

Miranda Seymour as an almost-aristocrat just when the British Aristocracy was breathing its last gasp. “Oh, no,” I thought, when I first saw it. “Not another book about the demise of aristocracy! I thought I knew it all after watching the fabulous television shows “Brideshead Revisited” and Upstairs Downstairs.” But those were nearer the beginning of the Twentieth Century when the class system was starting to crumble. Miranda Seymour’s memoir takes place at the end of the century. Miranda’s father George was the last of a dying breed, while Miranda herself grew up in the post-aristocratic era. She needed to find her own way, and become her own person, making it a terrific Coming of Age story of a woman who had to move from the old world to the new one. Her transformation was captured in a memorable line. “I was dancing topless in Los Angeles, in a bar where I was the only white.” She uses research into her father’s life, including extensive use of his diaries and letters.

“Courage to Walk” by Robert Waxler

(Publishedby Spinner Publications )

Jeremy Waxler, a vibrant young athlete and lawyer, loses control of his legs, and becomes paralyzed. The search for the cause and cure of his mysterious illness reads at first like a medical thriller, except it’s not a book about medicine. It’s about the love of a father for his son. In a previous memoir, “Losing Jonathan,” published in 2003, Robert Waxler recounts the loss of his first son to an overdose. In this current memoir, Waxler watches in horror as his second beloved son teeters on the edge of life. Waxler again travels into the abyss, trying to make sense, telling the story as a reporter, a father, and a philosopher. Robert Waxler is a professor of literature, and he uses this vast reservoir of wisdom offered by other writers to help maintain his balance.

Links to Amazon Pages

“This Boy’s Life: A Memoir” by Tobias Wolff

She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel

“What I know for sure, My story of growing up in America” by Tavis Smiley

“The Liar’s Club: A Memoir” by Mary Karr

“Last Lecture,” Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow

“The Kids are All Right: A memoir” by Diana Welch, Liz Welch, Amanda Welch, Dan Welch

“True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall” by Mark Salzman

“Teach with Your Heart: Lessons I Learned from The Freedom Writers” by Erin Gruwell

“Thrumpton Hall: A Memoir of Life in My Father’s House” by Miranda Seymour

“Courage to Walk” by Robert Waxler
(Publishedby Spinner Publications )

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on this blog, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

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Posted in Book Review | 7 Comments »

Seeking Truth in a far off land, “American Shaolin” Part 3

Monday, December 14th, 2009

By Jerry Waxler

In the 1960s, Timothy Leary suggested “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Many young people, myself included, were seduced into thinking that these three steps would lead to wisdom. For several years I jettisoned social norms. At the end of that road, I believed in nothing. Leary’s formula had emptied me without offering anything in return. To fill the void, I looked Eastward and found a teacher in India who, unlike Leary, advised me to get a job. According to his system, I could best achieve spirituality in a sort of parallel universe while I continued to live in the world. Essentially, he recommended that I drop back in

Recently I read about another young man looking to the Orient to find deeper Truth. Matthew Polly, author of the memoir “American Shaolin,” dropped out of Princeton and joined a monastery in China to study martial arts for two years. Polly’s path required hard work and sacrifice. By the time he arrived in China, he had already learned how to speak Mandarin, certainly a harder project than any self-respecting hippie would have attempted. And that was only the beginning. In China, Polly devoted hours every day to practice Kung Fu. His intense commitment earned him the respect and friendship of his fellow monks.

Writing Prompt
Do you have a story about dropping out, or seeking truth? What prompted you? Where did you go for answers? What did you sacrifice? Who did you talk to? What did you see, feel, or hear on your search? How satisfied were you with the results?

Describing introspective experiences

Polly studied religion at Princeton, and must have amassed a mountain of complex ideas. But he didn’t travel all the way to China to learn more intellectual concepts. He could have done that in the comfort of his college library. He wanted to go beyond books to find a more ethereal “Knowing.” When he achieved such a moment of introspective transport, he attempted to describe in words the subtle observations that could only be seen within his own consciousness.

Then, out of curiosity he asked other people if they ever felt anything similar. To his surprise, many people told him about their own transcendent experiences. His description of these conversations provided one of the simplest, clearest treatments I have read about the direct perception of spirituality.

Writing Prompt
Write about a time when you perceived an alternate reality, perhaps while listening to music, or on a starry night, or in a dream, or in prayer or meditation, or in the physical exhilaration and release after a hard bike ride, hike, swim, or climb.

Seeking is just one aspect of his story

My own reading of “American Shaolin” focuses on Polly’s curiosity about his inner reality. But that was not his only theme. He also told about his Coming of Age. The book described the emerging connection between China and the U.S. It was also a story about learning to fight, and it was a travelogue. That’s the magic of stories. They package the intricate weave of life within an unfolding narrative. Authors show what they see, and readers draw their own conclusions.

Writing Prompt
List the various themes and dimensions of your own life journey that you believe readers will appreciate.

Seeking takes us to strange places, where rules are not what we think

In the famous bar scene in the movie Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker saw the menagerie of strange looking creatures, it was obvious that he had entered a different world, to survive he would need to learn and adapt to unfamiliar rules.

In Matt Polly’s memoir, there were many indications that he was not in Kansas anymore. When Polly went to the hospital near the Shaolin Temple, he was shocked to find out how poorly equipped it was, and the floors were made of dirt!  When he traveled to a remote rural region, most people had never seen a white man.  The economic system was an unpredictable mix of socialism and capitalism – the official term was, “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” Apparently, this meant that anyone could earn money, and if the Party bosses wanted to take some for themselves, they just changed the rules.

Writing Prompt
When you moved to a different region, or into a different subculture, what changes let you know you were in a “foreign” land? Write a scene to show your surprise.

Here’s one of mine

In Berkeley in 1971, in my usual dire state of loneliness, I went to visit a girl who knew some friends of mine from the University of Wisconsin. When she answered the door, I told her the names of our mutual friends. I was relieved when she softened and invited me into her candle lit pad. Behind her, another girl reclined dreamily on cushions. As I was sitting down to join them, the first girl asked me my sign. I said “Gemini” and they looked at each other. She became stern and distant, and then asked me to leave. Shaken, I walked out to the street, alone again, wondering what I had done wrong.

Notes

This is my third essay on the memoir “American Shaolin.” To read the other essays, click the links below:
Princeton Student transfers to the School of Hard Knocks or Learning Kung Fu at the Shaolin Temple

Flawed heroes and mechanical body parts: Shaolin Memoir Part 2

Click here for the Amazon Page for “American Shaolin” by Matthew Polly.

For more background about the modern history of China, see my essay about the memoir, “The Man on Mao’s Right.

Posted in 60's, Book Review, Hero's Journey, beliefs, travel | No Comments »

Flawed heroes and mechanical body parts: Shaolin Memoir Part 2

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

When the hero of the television show “Kung Fu” smashed faces, I cheered him on, without pausing to consider that I don’t like pain, and usually admire people for more peaceful behavior. After reading the memoir “American Shaolin” by Matthew Polly I have now had an opportunity to think more about what should have been obvious all along – if you hit someone in the face, it’s going to hurt.

Polly was raised to be a nice guy, intent on being kind to people, but he also wanted to learn how to stand up for himself. So when he dropped out of Princeton to learn to fight at a Chinese monastery, one of his goals was to become less of a nice guy and more of a “bad ass.”

Dark side of heroes

Polly analyzed his opponents during a fight, learning to intentionally mislead them so they wouldn’t be able to predict his next move. Inflicting pain was his goal, and he was proud to achieve it. But hurting people sounds like something bad guys do. Aren’t protagonists supposed to be “good”?

The question has haunted me my whole life, not just about heroes in books but about my own behavior. Somehow I had formed the idea that emotions made me look flawed, so I thought I was supposed to hide my emotions. As a result, I appeared stiff and remote, an image that turned people off. Instead of convincing them to like me more, my behavior gave them reasons to like me less.

As my memoir took shape, a more troubled and prickly young man emerged than I ever realized. However, when I saw this flawed character on the page, it didn’t look as bad as I had always feared. Instead, I realized many heroes have edgy, even repugnant character flaws. Homer’s Ulysses was impulsive. Hamlet was self-involved. Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict. And despite these flaws, or perhaps because of them, readers identify with the hero. So why shouldn’t the hero of my memoir also be flawed? This acceptance of my faults liberated me from the exhausting work of pretending I’m perfect.

Matthew Polly apparently understood this principle. He made no attempt to hide his bloodlust, or his inner conflicts. Underneath his exterior projection, I felt the adrenaline surging through his body and shutting down his thoughts tightening the bond between an authentic author and a curious reader.

Hard body parts are tools of the trade

In the Kung Fu tradition, fighters selected their own specialized fighting technique and that technique became their trademark. One type of specialty, called Iron Kung Fu, required the fighter to develop enormous strength and hardness in a part of their anatomy such as their forearm or neck.

Polly met a practitioner of Iron Crotch and accepted an invitation to go with the man to visit his rural village. The fighter, who was singularly unattractive, apparently benefitted at least in one way from focusing so much attention on his genitals. On the trip home, he stopped off at various homes to pay respects to a half dozen women, and the babies he fathered.

At first, the practice of Iron Kung Fu sounds weird and foreign. With a little reflection, you see that mixing matter with flesh is a common occurrence. In the childhood tale of Peter Pan, I was fascinated by Captain Hook’s prosthesis, and the peg legs often sported by pirates. Many modern Superheroes have non-flesh appendages such as the blades that spring out of Wolfman’s hands and the web that spins from Spiderman’s wrists.

Once you start looking, you notice real humans also use matter to extend their capability. Modern people wear breast implants, tooth implants, artificial heart valves and pacemakers, insulin pumps. Rappers mount diamonds on their teeth. Wigs are artificial. So are clothes, jewelry, and eye glasses. Exploring these extensions of self into matter can extend your understanding of how you operate in the world.

Writing Prompt
Write a scene about some inanimate extension of your own body, and see how it affected your emotional well-being, your sense of wholeness, or on the other hand, talk about how it felt foreign and strange.

Fighting Technique with an American Slant

Polly decided not to study the Iron Crotch technique. Instead he invented his own fighting specialty called “Crazy American.” Taking advantage of the prejudice Chinese people had about Americans, Polly acted like he was out-of-control, intimidating people without striking a single blow.

Writing Prompt
What sorts of manipulative behavior have you used in order to gain some influence over people? Write a scene about a time when you intentionally acted out or in other ways played a role, in order to create a desired effect in the people around you.

Notes
To read part 1 of my review about “American Shaolin” click here.

To visit the Amazon page for Matthew Polly’s Memoir, “American Shaolin” click here.

To visit Matthew Polly’s Home Page, click here.

Gary Presley in “Seven Wheelchairs” proposed the unusual idea that the wheelchair was an extension of himself. To read my essay on this compelling memoir click here.

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Posted in Book Review, Hero's Journey | 2 Comments »

How These Memoir Authors Emerged Into Adulthood

Friday, November 13th, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

To learn how to write my memoir, I have been reading memoirs. The more I read, the more I learn not just about how to write a memoir, but also how other people’s lives worked, through a variety of situations and stages. And from this research about others, I learn more about myself. In the following list of memoirs, I show a number of examples of how memoir authors experienced this complex transition from childhood into adulthood. By seeing how this period contained so much dramatic tension for these authors, you may gain some insight into the dramatic tension of your own transition into adulthood.

Escaping gangs

Kids in ghettos are pressured from an early age to join gangs and get involved with drugs. It would be easy to stay within this lifestyle. The three men who wrote their story in “The Pact” by Drs. Sampson Davis George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt, were facing exactly that situation. But they stuck together, using the school system, combined with their mutual respect and support to escape the pull of the ghetto, becoming doctors, and then turning back to their community to inspire others to follow their lead.

Emerging From Foster Care

A child in the foster care system, Ashley Rhodes-Courter, constantly felt disconnected from her caregivers, as she moved from one home to another. Finally adopted as a teenager, she turned her disrupted childhood into a successful young adulthood. After this difficult turnaround, she launched successfully, going to college and becoming a national spokesperson for foster care. Her memoir “Three Little Words” enables her to share her message.

Related Essay: Who protects the children? Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

Smashed trying to do the right thing

Jim McGarrah’s childhood in a safe, healthy Midwest town came to a crashing halt, not when he made a terrible mistake, but when he tried to do the right thing. He joined the army, against his veteran father’s advice, and through the course of his launching became demolished by the horrors of war. As portrayed in his recently published memoir “A Temporary Sort of Peace,” the young man at the end of the launching was just a shadow of the hopeful, energetic one who started it.

Related Essay: Storytellers shed light on the horrors of war

Smashed by sex and drugs

Dani Shapiro’s life had all the right ingredients. She came from a wealthy family, attended a top liberal arts school in New York, picking up an occasional job as a model or actress. Then, an affair with her best friend’s father pulled her into the undertow of drugs, alcohol and obsession. She was crashing on the launch pad. A tragic accident involving her parents shook her out of her stupor. She regained her footing, returned to school, and by the end of the memoir “Slow Motion” was ready to reenter society.

Related Essay: What does Dani Shapiro, or any of us, really want?

A detour into temporary stardom

Dee Dee Phelps, author of “Vinyl Highway” was an ordinary high school girl who liked to sing. With all the advantages of a middle class girl in the early 60s, her path seemed straight and sure: find a husband, and settle down. But she took a huge detour. A guy she knew asked her if she would join him as a singing partner. They formed a popular duet called Dick and Dee Dee.

She had a meteoric rise to a famous singer who toured the world and appeared regularly on television in the 60s. Over the next few years, musical tastes changed rapidly and her partnership with Dick collapsed. Dropping out of the stars, she returned to her original life, ready for the next step of her delayed path towards a more traditional adulthood.

Related Essay: Fame and Story Structure in Dee Dee’s 60’s memoir
To read the two part interview with the author: Click Here for Part 1 and … Here for Part 2

A perfect career left some questions unanswered

Soon after high school, Jancee Dunn landed a job at the magazine Rolling Stone, interviewing celebrities in print and on camera. Despite these glorious encounters, or perhaps because of them, she still needed to develop her own sense of identity, purpose and relationships. Her memoir, “Enough about me” is an excellent travelogue through this period of self-discovery.

Double-launch, injury forces a second coming

George Brummell, author of the memoir “Shades of Darkness,” grew up in the Jim Crow south. In the early sixties, he escaped into the military. His assignment in Korea seemed like a storybook case of letting the military help him grow up and see the world. It came crashing down in Vietnam when a landmine blinded him and permanently damaged his arm. As a civilian, he successfully found a new path, going to college, and landing a job as an executive in the Blinded Veterans commission.

Related Essay: Blind veteran finds his voice by writing

Double-launch, Failure of first launch hurls Joan Rivers into a second

When Joan Rivers’ first marriage failed, she decided to trade in her promising career at a department store for the shady and uncertain future of a performer. She tried her hand as an actress, and then decided there were more opportunities in stand up comedy. The memoir “Enter Talking” follows her grueling journey from her early dreams to her on-air meeting with Johnny Carson that finally launched her into her second self.

Related Essay: Memoir by Celebrity Joan Rivers Offers Lessons for Aspiring Writers

Ambiguous Launch into the world, but still many questions

Frank McCourt, grew up in Ireland, and from early childhood, he was burdened by a father whose devotion to liquor came first. The chaos and poverty hobbled McCourt’s march to adulthood, dragging him down. The book “Angela’s Ashes” shows McCourt crawling across the finish line of childhood. Geographically he escaped his childhood by traveling from Ireland to the U.S. but emotionally he had not yet come of age, leaving the door open for a sequel in which he could continue to grow up.

Greg Mortenson’s long sputtering journey towards adulthood

Greg Mortenson could not quite find the path into adulthood. Passionate about climbing mountains, he maintained a marginal lifestyle that gave him the freedom to climb in the Himalayas. Lost one day in those mysterious mountains, he literally stumbled on his true mission. He would build schools for the poor people in remote regions of Pakistan. Without even knowing what he was doing, he became a social entrepreneur, raising money and lobbying for his cause. His desire to serve forced him to launch. In “Three Cups of Tea” he describes his long journey from child to fully engaged member of society.

Related Essay: “Find meaning through service” or “Making peace with the peasants of Pakistan”

Mental misfit eventually finds rightful place

John Robison’s launching seemed sluggish. In midlife he was still trying to find his center. After decades of trying to put his life together piece by piece, a casual diagnosis of Asperger’s made him realize he had been carrying an extra load. Armed with this new perspective, he looked back upon his life and understood more about how it worked. He became a more complete human being by turning his newfound wisdom towards raising awareness about Asperger’s through public speaking and writing the memoir “Look Me in the Eye.”

Related essay: John Robison’s Asperger’s gave me permission to write about myself

Trauma that smashes launching in mid-stream

Some launchings are going along well, and then a violent intrusion wrecks the road, turning what was supposed to be ordinary life into a struggle to survive.

“Lucky” by Alice Sebold
Alice Sebold’s “Lucky” portrays a devastating reshaping of a life after she was violently raped during college. The memoir portrays her long search to regain innocence and peace.

Related Essay: Alice Sebold’s Lucky, a searing memoir of trauma

“Picking Cotton” by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton

Another young woman’s life was torn to pieces by rape, but her journey back to adulthood was marked by an amazing story. Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton is co-written by the man who was falsely imprisoned for raping her. “That night two lives were destroyed.” The man she accused of the rape turned out to be exonerated, and her second launching has taken place in the social activism of reducing the number of such mistakes in the present.

Related Essay: Mistaken Identification: A memoir of injustice and redemption

“Crazy Love” by Leslie Morgan Steiner
Leslie Morgan Steiner, a Harvard graduate and rising magazine editor was set up for spectacular success. Falling in love with and marrying an abusive man, she quickly found herself struggling for her life. She tells the story in her memoir “Crazy Love.”

Posted in Book Review, Coming of age, Hero's Journey | No Comments »

Princeton Student transfers to the School of Hard Knocks or Learning Kung Fu at the Shaolin Temple

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

Every week, the television show “Kung Fu,” opened the doors of a magic kingdom in which the hero, a peaceful warrior named Kwai Chang Caine, avoided violence except when he needed to save innocent people from persecution. Then, he crushed his opponents. Dreamy flashbacks showed Caine with his teacher, Master Po, in an exotic oriental temple. When the student was ready to go into the world, he lifted a kettle of red hot embers between his forearms, forever burning the Shaolin Temple into his skin and my mind.

Recently, I saw a memoir “American Shaolin” by Matthew Polly, a young man who dropped out of Princeton to study Kung Fu at the Shaolin Temple in China. I was stunned to learn the place was real and even more astonished that it still existed. At first I resisted reading the book, afraid the real world might ruin my fantasies. Finally curiosity won. I jumped in to “American Shaolin” and kept turning pages to the end.

Matthew Polly left his Ivy League school, and traveled to a small town in China, where he moved into a small sparsely furnished room, took a vow of celibacy, and began his studies. The memoir contained many interesting themes: a search for identity, for spiritual meaning, for the soul of China, and it was a book about men and fighting.

What are men really like?

I’ve never understood girly-girls. Their world view seemed as inaccessible as say, inhabitants of the planet Venus. That was before I started reading memoirs. Now I can see into the mind of anyone who takes the time to write about themselves, expanding my insight across gender lines in a way I never considered possible.

It turns out, I don’t know much about gender-drenched men, either, having lived a watered-down version of masculinity. I never played sports, never was in a fight, never served in the military, never hung out in bars. Matthew Polly’s book has taken me inside a more masculine world than the one I inhabit, and now I know more about that half of the world, too.

From Polly, I learned that some things about men remain consistent across drastically different cultures. For example, after a hard day of strength, agility, and fight exercises, Shaolin monks went out drinking. Talking shop about their day’s practice, their conversations also included that favorite male topic, women, demonstrating the influence of lust across cultural lines.

Writing Prompt
Write a scene when you were attracted to or repelled by a stereotyped male or female trait, such as “too macho” or “too cute.” In the same scene, or another one, write how you felt about your own gender traits?

Wooing and Other Bargaining

Despite his vow of celibacy, Matt Polly did occasionally try to woo a Chinese girl. His attempted liaisons were complicated by four decades of Communist party propaganda that taught Chinese citizens to beware of westerners. The girls were suspicious of Matt and at the same time attracted to him, providing a weird, intriguing mix of politics and sexuality.

On one occasion, he had a hot date the night before an important fight. During dinner, his coach created such an embarrassing scene the girl walked out in frustration. Afterwards, the coach said to Matt, “It’s just as well. If she stayed it would have made your legs weak.” When Polly did finally sleep with a Chinese woman he described the scene with lyrical tenderness. But then she expected him to marry and he fell back to another famous male stance, fear of commitment.

Trying to get a girl into bed was not the only maneuvering going on. One-upsmanship occurred in a variety of situations. Of course, in fighting, the opponents must constantly try to get the upper hand. The focus on strategy set the stage for all sorts of situations of bargaining and maneuvering. For example, he had evidence he was overpaying for rent and tuition, and he tried to negotiate with the temple managers to lower the price. The maneuvering on both sides demonstrated the business-like mentality of the place.

Forty years of hatred for capitalism did not stamp out the Chinese instinct for bargaining any more than it stamped out sexual attraction. Polly’s description of Chinese bargaining strategies helped me understand the expression “inscrutable oriental.” The men were employing a technique known in the west as a “poker face.” To beat your opponent, you must hide your feelings.

I used to think it was tacky to write about money, but I have since come to realize the stuff keeps showing up in real life as well as in good stories. In “American Shaolin,” Polly uses money to show the power struggles among people, to offer insights into his own circumstance, and to provide another window into the Chinese culture. Strangely enough, the tense negotiations between Polly and the managers of the Temple did not ruin my impression of Polly or the Temple. It simply helped me fill in additional aspects of their world, proving once again that the mundane side of human nature, when told well, can breathe authenticity and tension into ordinary situations.

Writing Prompt
Bargaining is a common activity, when we try to get what we want through arguing, or pleading, or strategy. Write a scene when you had to get something from someone, whether for love, or money, or power. Show your plan. Or show how you acted impulsively, without a plan. How did it work? How well did the other person defend their own needs? What did they do to resist your request? Who was the better strategist?

Notes
Click here for the Amazon Page: “American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China by Matthew Polly”

Matthew Polly’s Home Page

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Posted in Book Review, Coming of age, travel | 1 Comment »

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