Category Archives: Celebrity

When is a memoir by a celebrity not a celebrity memoir?

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By Jerry Waxler

Andre Agassi was one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and he was married to supermodel Brooke Shields. So it would be natural to expect his memoir, “Open,” to be just another celebrity memoir, taking a free ride on his household name. But the book was not a vapid look at the privileged life of a star. Instead the tennis player and his ghost-writer J.R. Moehringer, author of the memoir “Tender Bar,” converted a lifetime into a good story, filled with emotional insight.

The memoir had much in common with a good novel. It developed characters, built suspense and guided me through the protagonist’s emotional experience. The author found the prize all aspiring memoirists seek. Like a quest for the holy grail, he located the organizing principle that allowed him to collect his experiences into a readable whole.

Each of us must describe our own unique path, but after reading more than a hundred memoirs, I find that memoirs are driven by fundamental principles. Like any story, memoirs require  dramatic tension and story arc. But many people, especially those who fear their lives are not important enough to write about, make the mistake of thinking that all the action takes place on the outside, with flashy characters and big scenes.

I find that memorable memoirs use the external events as a shell. The heart of the story takes place on a more interior level. When I read a memoir, I want to gain a deeper understanding of what drove the protagonist through those events. What inner flaws made the journey more difficult and how did the author overcome those inner obstacles?  “Open” is a world-class example of the author’s inner journey, making the book not only a good read but also an instructive one, offering valuable insights into what makes a memoir tick.

This is the first part of a multi-part review of Andre Agassi’s “Open.” In the next entry I will pick apart the elements and suggest ways “Open” can help you write your own memoir.

More memoir writing resources

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

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

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Let us now praise those who serve – a new way to earn fame

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By Jerry Waxler

I thought I saw Brooke Shields in a restaurant in Princeton. I didn’t want to be rude and stare, but the woman I was with had no such problem. She said, “Yup, that’s her.” Now, decades later, I still feel I have a special relationship with Brooke. I’ve heard similar star-struck stories all my life. For example, I once walked into a shoe store in Sausalito, California and the salesman gushed that Daryl Hannah had been shopping there a week earlier.

I worry about all this adulation of good looking people, and wonder if we are collectively heading in the same direction as teenagers whose first love is based solely on physical attraction. Such choices often end in disaster.

I wish we could base our collective admiration on qualities that run deeper. And I believe this is exactly the role memoirs could serve. Whether or not I knew the author before I started reading a memoir, by the time I finish, I feel we have grown closer, like traveling companions who have shared many miles.

Through memoirs I know the inner workings of all sorts of people. I know Haven Kimmel’s childhood in a small town in the Midwest. I know Kate Braestrup’s climb out of grief amidst the streams and forests of Maine. I know the horrors Jim McGarrah experienced in Vietnam, and the psychological cruelty endured by Sue William Silverman. I know what it was like for Rebecca Walker to grow up black, white, and Jewish.

While all these writers earn my regard, some emerge from the pages, using their books as a platform from which they can raise awareness of some cause.

Henry Louis Gates and Tavis Smiley raise awareness of intercultural relations in America. Firoozeh Dumas tirelessly advocates to improve relationships between the U.S. and the people of Iran. Ashley Rhodes-Courter lobbies to improve the foster care system in America. John Robison educates the public about Asperger’s. Greg Mortenson started the Central Asia Institute to educate poor children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton publicize the plight of wrongfully incarcerated prisoners.

Several memoirists offer the power of words, not just inside their book but also in classrooms and other literary programs, trying to call our attention to that power in our own lives.

Erin Gruwell started the Freedom Writers Foundation to promote educational reform. English professor Robert Waxler founded a program, Changing Lives Through Literature, CLTL, which offers the alternative sentence of studying books, helping convicted criminals escape their pattern of crime, and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg developed a group, Transformative Language Arts, dedicated to using language to transform and heal society.

My love for all these memoir writers continues to grow. Through stories and activism, we swap passion and build sustainable relationships based on a more solid foundation than beauty.

I don’t mean to imply that the people who tell their story necessarily look bad. In fact, even Brooke Shields has earned her place on this list. Her memoir “Down Came the Rain,” tells about her struggle through the dismal terror of postpartum depression. She has shared her potentially humiliating experience in order to raise awareness of an important mental health issue. In the process she also shows me there is more to her than just a pretty face.

Writing Prompt
Consider ways your life experience could serve a cause, through advocacy or activism. Try writing your book blurb or a press release about your memoir that emphasizes the public service of your private life.

Notes

More about Transformative Language Arts Network

More about the Freedom Writers Foundation

More about Changing Lives Through Literature alternative sentencing program

Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s home page

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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Memoir by Celebrity Joan Rivers Offers Lessons for Aspiring Writers

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By Jerry Waxler

After learning so many lessons from Steve Martin’s memoir “Born Standing Up,” I wanted more, so I jumped in to Joan Rivers’ memoir “Enter Talking.” Her path was remarkably similar to his. Year after year she too made a fool of herself in a desperate bid to please people, persisting through darkness, despair and frustration. What strange alignment of the stars caused these two comedians to suffer so we could laugh?

(To see my essay about Steve Martin’s journey click here.)

While their tales may seem to apply only to the stratospheric world of big celebrity performers, both started as ordinary people. And so, I found lessons in both their journeys that helped me on my struggle to travel from no readers to as many as possible.

Innovation makes publishers nervous

One contradiction sits mysteriously at the center of both their journeys. On one hand, audiences and talent scouts want to be entertained by a fresh voice, and on the other hand, gatekeepers shy away from an act that is too different from the ones that are already making money.

The road to success is littered with the dead acts and fatigued performers who have given up before making it through the gauntlet. And that’s exactly what makes Rivers and Martin so interesting, so informative, and in the end so famous – their relentless pursuit of unique excellence and their refusal to follow the herd. By continuing to push, inch by painful inch, they made almost imperceptible progress, polishing their act, gaining allies, and after each disappointment learning a lesson that would help them do better next time.

Their experience applies directly to memoir writers. Each memoir is its own thing. No one has ever done your particular life story before in your particular voice. But gatekeepers seek books that are similar to ones already on the bestseller list. How do you please them and stay true to yourself at the same time? These two memoirs offer insights into this seemingly impossible challenge.

Different decade, different coast

While the two memoirs bear remarkable similarities, they also have many differences. Steve Martin’s home base was Los Angeles from which he traveled to college campuses and small clubs all over North America, coping with endless miles of loneliness. Rivers’ home base was New York and her endless search was around town, begging agents’ secretaries for a few minutes with the boss, begging for stints at night clubs, venturing out of town for gigs in the Catskills, and a stint at the Second City Improv in Chicago.

Pacing of the memoir works like a thriller

Despite her relentless efforts, for six years Joan Rivers only had scattered success in a few clubs and occasional tours. But the Holy Grail of national exposure on television eluded her. When Jack Paar invited her on to his influential television show, she thought she had arrived. Weirdly, after the show he told his producers not to invite her back, calling her a “liar.” He didn’t understand that her ironically exaggerated stories were jokes. Crushed, she returned to small clubs.

After a few years, she was no longer a kid, and agents started to call her “old news,” and said if she was going to succeed she would have already done so. Over and over she hit the wall of rejection. This heart breaking cycle continued for hundreds of pages, like in a thriller in which the smell of disaster encourages readers to move on to the next page.

Finally, finally, at the very end of the book, her agent practically forced Johnny Carson’s producers to accept her for a spot. From the moment she walked on to the set, Carson clicked with her humor. He laughed. He fed her lines. And he praised her on camera. The tension broke, and the next day her agent called to tell her she would not earn less than $300 a week for the rest of her life. In a surge of joy and accomplishment, Rivers shouted at the world “I was right.”

Satisfying Character Arc

I found the almost abrupt end of the book to provide a focused emotional release equivalent to a well placed punch line. I think at least some of the satisfaction results from her character arc. As we follow her from amateur to professional comedian, the story arc shows us not only her external journey. It takes us deep inside Rivers’ psyche.

When she first tried her hand at comedy, she repeated jokes learned from other comedians. Gradually she tried more authentic material, improvised from her own experience. When she saw the irreverent performances of Lenny Bruce, she realized that he ferociously battled ignorance by telling truth more bluntly than it had ever been told. She had an epiphany that truth is the one thing that makes life worth living and she vowed to incorporate confession as the centerpiece of her comedy.

For example, she was hired at the last minute to take someone’s place in a performance. Many times in her career, she had been hired to do a gig and then fired after the first night by producers who hated her act. So she worked her fear into the routine. “I don’t know how long I’ll be working here. I notice they wrote my name in pencil on the poster out front.” She turned her vulnerability into a joke.

Her most vulnerable disclosures came from the arguments with her parents, who expected her to be more “normal.” She was a middle class girl with a degree from a prestigious college, daughter of a respected doctor. Desperate to succeed she moved out of the suburbs to live practically homeless in Manhattan, a move that so outraged and frightened her parents, they threatened to have her committed. By baring these fights with her parents she brings the same relentless commitment to honesty to her memoir as she offers onstage.

The memoir is a stunning expose of herself, her sorrow, the bitterness between her and her parents, and her struggle to find her own unique place in the world. The rejection and arguments didn’t tear her apart. Instead, the adversity seems to have made her strong, and provided the basis for a public career that has spanned 40 years, giving her the rare opportunity to become rich and famous by being exactly who she is.

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Celebrity Lessons for Writers

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by Jerry Waxler

I picture Steve Martin in dozens of situations. I’ve seen him tell jokes on talk shows, woo a woman in the movie “Roxanne,” and anxiously fuss over his daughter in “Father of the Bride.” The more I think about Steve Martin, the more I remember him. It feels like we have been hanging out together for years. So when I heard about his memoir, “Born Standing Up,” I should have jumped for joy. But instead, my impulse was to run away. One reason for this aversion is that I prefer the lives of “ordinary” people. Another reason is that I’ve been burned.

Years ago I purchased a memoir by Ruth Gordon, an actress whose performances enchanted me in movies like “Harold and Maude.” I looked forward to reading more about her, but the prose was so boring, the situations so leaden, I actually returned the book for a refund. From that experience I formed the prejudice that celebrity memoirs are on the shelf because the author is famous, not because the book is good.

My conclusion was based on a sample size of one, hardly an impressive scientific test. Furthermore, famous people exert enormous power in our culture, and unless I break down and read their memoirs, I’m going to remain ignorant about them. So when an online friend suggested that Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up” was authentic and introspective I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be an excellent book about a boy’s climb from ordinary childhood to international fame.

Desire, Effort, Sacrifice

When Martin was a child, he looked at the stage and knew he wanted to be on it. At first he thought he could achieve success by performing magic acts. Later he incorporated comedy into his routine and then banjo playing. Basically, he didn’t care what he did, as long as he performed. Of course, reaching the stage was only the beginning. To be invited back, he had to learn how to please audiences. It was a long journey.

Writing Prompt

Consider your own life achievements. What sacrifices and hardships did you make in order to achieve some greatly desired goals?

Writers want to reach the public, too

Most writers think they will be finished when they type the last word. They seldom anticipate the public leg of their journey. And yet, to succeed we must reach out to readers. Many memoir writers are interviewed on radio, speak at meetings, and greet people at book signings. People want to learn more about us. So we writers need to face audiences gladly, learn to please them, and damp down our sensitivity to the weird mix of scrutiny, criticism, and indifference.

Hardly any of us will become famous in the way Steve Martin is, and yet his memoir provides insight into our situation. Like so many successful artists and performers, Steve Martin claims his fame had more to do with persistence than talent. He relentlessly pursued public attention, and refused to accept defeat. Week after week, he found an open microphone or a low paying gig, stood in front of the crowd, failed miserably, tried to learn from his experience, and did it again.

Famous writers often tell similar stories. Stephen King persisted despite many rejections, and I’m beginning to believe that willingness to reach for the public is indeed the entry fee. Martin sought fame as if his life depended on it. It makes a good story. His desire established the momentum. We accompany him through those years as he tried to fulfill that desire despite seemingly impossible odds.

As writers, we need to develop this dramatic tension in the stories we write. And to succeed, we also need to follow the dramatic tension in real life. By following our desire, we make choices and take chances that lead us further towards our dream of communicating with readers.

Writing prompt

What tenacious drive did you follow? Making babies.. your career.. your art or sport? Write a scene of rejection or failure, and show how you picked up and kept going.

Even spectacular success becomes just another chapter in a long life

His fame grew so large he was performing in large halls where he was barely visible from the back. And yet, surprisingly, even during this period of exploding fame, he continued to experience terrible anxiety attacks, private hells he can’t really describe. He was intensely lonely and scared much of the time.

Then Martin walked away from comedy and shifted to movie making. He says he never looked back. He even claims he forgot about those years when he was trying so hard to earn a living by making people laugh. Considering how much psychological pain he suffered during this period, it makes sense that he would forget it when he moved on to the next chapter in his life. Later, when he tried to write about it, this period came into focus and took its rightful place in the whole journey of being Steve Martin.

This is an excellent example of the way life really works. When we move on to a new challenge, a new city or relationship or career, we often have trouble remembering the old one. We don’t even know we’ve forgotten. The years are simply gone. By writing we can re-integrate those lost parts, making ourselves more whole.

Did it for you dad

Martin’s story includes a tragic portrayal of his relationship to his father. He could never please his dad, and so he kept wondering what he could do to impress the old man. When his dad was close to death, Martin reached out to him and said, “I did it for you, dad.” Then turning to the reader he says, “I should have said, ‘I did it because of you.’” In other words, he became a successful comedian in order to break past his dad’s relentless disapproval.

By sharing this intimate moment, Martin proves the point that celebrities are people. The work of a memoir is to offer that humanity to readers. And so, I’m glad I read this book about a celebrity, who was also a real human being, who wanted the same things I want, and who was later willing to take the time to go back, organize those experiences and share them with me in his memoir.

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Please comment about your best or worst celebrity memoir, or your experience with tenacity.

Note
Another memoir “Enter Talking” by Joan Rivers also highlights the shocking tenacity needed to go from obscurity to fame. She also endured years of hardship and rejection. To read my essay about Joan Rivers‘ tale, click here.

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5 Reasons why I read Brooke Shields’ “Down Came the Rain” even though I avoid celebrity memoirs

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by Jerry Waxler

I typically avoid celebrity memoirs, not because they aren’t people too, but because their memoirs generally play by a different set of rules. Celebrities are generally given a free pass. If they are famous enough, they can write anything they please, which is nice for them, and sometimes entertaining, but it’s much harder to draw lessons that apply to us normal people. I felt that Brooke Shields’ memoir “Down Came the Rain,” while certainly the product of enormous star power, was also down to earth enough to warrant a read. It turned out to be interesting, and informative. Following are five reasons why I read it.

  1. I want to learn what it’s like to be inside all sorts of minds, and I’ve never been inside the mind of a supermodel before. (It wasn’t bad.)
  2. Even though this was a celebrity memoir, it felt very different from others I’ve flipped through. There wasn’t much name dropping, and the psychological journey of having a baby carried the book.
  3. It turned out to be a sort of parenting guidebook, and there was a lot of information in it that could help both members of a couple prepare, including a lot of details about In Vivo Fertilization, which I was pretty sketchy about. I like memoirs that teach.
  4. Postpartum depression is more than just the blues. I have a friend who is writing a fictional representation of her own postpartum mental breakdown. It’s serious. Another friend joked once that his mother thought he was the devil. Upon further discussion, it turned out not to be so funny. After he was born, she was hospitalized with postpartum psychosis. I wanted to learn more about what it feels like from inside the experience of a disordered mom.
  5. I think I saw her once, so that means we have karma. When she was attending Princeton University, I went out to a restaurant with friends. I didn’t want to gawk but my friends said it was definitely her a few tables away. (I saw Natalie Portman in a play once, so I’ll be on the lookout for her memoir, too.)

Notes:

To read the full essay I wrote about Down Came the Rain, click here.

To read about another celebrity memoir worth reading, see: Joan Rivers’ Celebrity Memoir Offers More Lessons for Aspiring Writers

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Celebrity interviewer turns the camera on herself

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By Jerry Waxler

(You can also listen to the podcast. Click the player control at the bottom of this post or download it from iTunes.)

Jancee Dunn was an ordinary girl from the suburbs of north New Jersey who dropped out of college, became a cub reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, and stayed there for 18 years. At her zenith she told the world about celebrities on MTV and Good Morning America. In the memoir “Enough About Me, How a Small-town Girl Went from Shag Carpet to the Red Carpet” she became the object of her own reporting. Thanks to her reporting skills, I empathized with her as she started her career, a nobody waiting at the doors of some of the most famous people in the world. “Oh my God, what must it feel like meeting a famous girl band, or rock and roll star?” Naturally her knees turned weak, but she went in anyway, and I kept turning pages.

For example, she interviewed singer Barry White, who gave her a big wet kiss at the door and treated her to a romantic dinner for two. Then she closed the door behind her. When she emerged a couple of hours later I don’t know what happened, in a virtuoso example of informing without revealing. Her discretion could provide a good model for other aspiring memoir writers who wonder how to explain awkward situations without getting into trouble.

During an interview with an unnamed celebrity who recently completed a month at rehab, he suggested that drugs were only a phone call away and asked if she would like to get high. She politely declined, and then went to the bathroom where she called her sister to explain the situation. Her sister said, “Are you crazy? Get out of there.” Jancee said, “But he’s so persuasive.” When she arrived home later, feeling shaken, she phoned her father, who talked to her about the routine details of his afternoon plans. His patter about gardening and errands soothed her and reminded her of all that was stable in her life.

Turned to the reader and offered interviewing tips
Walking with Jancee into interviews made me curious about how she worked her magic, getting the stars to say things they hadn’t said a thousand times. How did she work her way into their confidence? Occasionally she turned towards me and offered an insider tip. For example, in one of her more elaborate strategies, she started a celebrity interview by sharing a tidbit of gossip she heard about the star on the radio that very morning. Excited by this news, the star called over her publicity manager and they had a good laugh. By then, everyone was loose, and treated Jancee as a fine, generous person.

The anecdote showed me Jancee was smart, and gave me some insights into the mind of a celebrity. But I kept thinking about her interviewing tips long after I closed the book. In retrospect I see she was doing the same thing with me that she was doing with her stars. She was taking me into her confidence, making me feel like an insider. I felt her generosity and opened up to her. By turning towards the reader, she connected with me. I’m going to file this strategy away. Perhaps I can offer my own readers insider insights that will make them feel open with me.

Memoir of an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances
While I enjoyed learning about her interviews, this is a memoir, and I wanted to know more about her as a person. Rather than trying to be a star herself, she explored her life as an ordinary person. Her refusal to claim stardom for herself became a story element, providing a dramatic contrast between her own life and the lives of her interviewees. Her father was a manager at J.C. Penney’s, so loyal he named his daughter “Jancee” as a tribute to his employer’s initials. As children, when she and her sisters visited the department store, they were treated like royalty by the other employees. It was like being the fairy princess of suburbia.

In other memoirs, the exotic tastes and smells of food demonstrate the author’s ethnic life. Jancee uses food to show her background, too. Her family ate only beige and tasteless food. Think macaroni and cheese and Velveeta on white bread. These unremarkable food choices set a tone for her life.

What about inner struggles? Without the dark, there’s no way to emphasize the light. In Jancee’s memoir, the darkness came through her relationships with men. Her two disastrous boyfriends provided insight into her struggle to grow. The first guy was a sort of innocent sleaze, who left most of her self-respect intact. The second one was more self-involved, and his neediness and lack of care for her inner process pulled her into a darker place. When she started lying to her family, I wanted to cry out, “You’re going the wrong way! Turn back!” Eventually she realized that her strength came not from this self-involved guy but from within herself and her roots. As she pulled away from him, I felt dramatic relief, the sign of a good story.

Jancee found a compelling central arc to tie her book together
While she was paid to inform us about the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Jancee really celebrated the world of normal people, returning to her unglamorous roots as her safe haven. This contrast between her ordinary life and the lives she reported created dramatic tension. As the subtitle says, it wasn’t just about the famous nor just about suburbia but about how a suburban girl interviewed famous people. By the end of the book, she made it clear she was a regular person, with ordinary feelings, family, and circumstances.

So how did her simple life relate to the life of the stars? In one scene, she joins singer Loretta Lynn making fudge. They were talking so much, the fudge didn’t turn out right, and the next day, a courier delivered a better batch to Jancee’s door. It was a gesture that reached across the divide, a star saying “look, I’m ordinary too.” While the masses of celebrity watchers long for the stratospheric heights of stardom, Jancee raises the possibility that at least some of the stars aspire to normalcy.

I love her comfortable, trendy approach, not only to her stars, but to her readers. Through years of experience as a reporter and interviewer, she has apparently gained the knack of turning to the reader or viewer. I too am looking for a comfortable open voice, and her example inspires me. I look for other opportunities in my life when I have been forced to open my voice, such as in public speaking at Toastmasters, or doing interviews, or writing letters. It turns out that blogs are an excellent tool for finding a voice. Blogging creates a conversational atmosphere that leads to a more intimate connection with readers.

Many themes run through Jancee Dunn’s memoir. Her suburban roots, her meteoric rise as a reporter, her relationships with family and men. And yet, in thinking about the book, my mind returns to the central theme. Her ordinariness pulls the whole thing together. And while the subtitle of the book claims she made it to the Red Carpet, I’m not so sure. I find Jancee’s real intention is right there in her dedication, in which quotes Emily Dickenson. “Who am I? I am nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody too?” Thanks, Jancee for grounding me in ordinary life, while you share your story, your insights, and your tips for interviewing the stars.

Podcast version click the player control below:

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Writing Prompt: If you can’t find dramatic tension in just one theme of your life, look for two themes and explore the contrasts and conflicts between them.

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Note: Memoir writers sometimes think the only way to get published is to be famous. If you’re looking for a counter-example, check out A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel, a popular memoir by a very ordinary person. It’s her writing and observation that makes it so interesting.

Visit Amazon’s listing of Jancee’s book by clicking this link.

Check out Jancee’s website to see what she’s up to these days.

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Fame and Story Structure in Dee Dee’s 60′s memoir

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by Jerry Waxler

I think I saw Brooke Shields, once. I was having dinner with friends in Princeton, when Brooke was attending school there. I didn’t want to stare, but my friends swore it was her. Here’s an even lighter brush with fame. A guy I knew in college almost danced with Gracie Slick, the lead singer for the Jefferson Airplane. I was amazed that he was bragging about almost dancing with her, and now I’m even more amazed that I remember it 40 years later. I’m not the only one. When I tell people my stories, they share their own sightings. One saw a Broadway show. Natalie Portman was only 40 yards away. Another went into the same shoe store in Marin County frequented by Darryl Hannah. Yet, despite all this passion for stars I have absolutely no idea what their lives are like.

If you ever want to publish your memoir, you might have more interest in fame than you realize. Publishing breaks the barriers between a private life and a public one, and while few writers are hounded by paparazzi, we wonder what it’s like to be known by strangers. To help aspiring writers cope with their feelings about “Going Public,” I devoted a quarter of my self-help book, Four Elements for Writers, to the subject.

So what is it like to be “known” by strangers? That’s where memoirs come in. Memoirs are supposed to show me what it’s like being in someone else’s shoes. But which memoirs? Many celebrity books are ghost written, not even a direct expression of the celebrity’s own words. And most such memoirs play the celebrity card rather than shedding light on it. When I found the book “Vinyl Highway, Singing as Dick and Dee Dee” by Dee Dee Phelps I had reason to believe it would go deeper. I discovered through interviews and personal correspondence that Dee Dee had written it herself. That increases its value for other writers. And because she was famous decades ago and is famous no longer, it places her closer to regular life. Down from Mt. Olympus she walks with us mortals, and I hoped she could speak our language.

Dee Dee was an ordinary teenager, working in a candy store in Los Angeles early in the 60′s. She met Dick St. John, and based on their mutual interest in singing, they formed a duo Dick and Dee Dee. They cut their first record before they even performed together in front of a live audience. Californians loved the “B” side, Mountain’s High, and it shot to the top on the west coast. It was as if fate threw a switch. Soon Dick and Dee Dee were driving around middle-America, looking for crowds and DJ’s to help them spread the word and drive up sales.

The music business back then was simpler. Performers and producers were making deals in tiny studios. On her first couple of tours, she crammed into the back seat of a car. Traveling with black performers like Gary U.S. Bonds, she encountered explosive responses in the segregated south. When Dick and Dee Dee sang in high school auditoriums in the Los Angeles area, the other act was an up and coming boy band. These were early days for the Beach Boys, and so they were happy to play back up music for Dick and Dee Dee.

As Dick and Dee Dee gained recognition, the hotels and buses improved, but the grind continued: hoping for hit records, getting onto bigger stages, putting on a smile, and then getting back in the bus and doing it again. When they became regulars on the national television show Shindig, it looked like they made it, but the duo’s fame was only as good as their latest hit. Their style fell behind the rapidly changing music of the sixties, and gradually they sank back down into seedy night clubs, not much better than the ones they started in. At the end of the sixties the pair split up.

On the surface, the book is about the rise and fall of a singing duo. But if the only story arc was the “Dick and Dee Dee” act, and if the book ended with its death, it would have left me feeling empty. The death of the main character is better suited to a Shakespearean tragedy than contemporary popular fiction. So I looked deeper. What dramatic tension kept me engaged from the beginning, and then provided release and satisfaction at the end?

To find the answer I look more closely at Dee Dee’s own hopes and dreams. Her external world with its endless parade of night clubs, stage acts and television shows, seemed to be sucking the life out of her. Internally, I realized this book is a coming of age story about a young girl becoming a woman. At the beginning of the story, Dee Dee wanted to grow up, and by the end of the story she did by getting married and having a baby. Fame was a detour, a distraction from real life. When her act died, it felt like she had escaped the superficial and needy life style of a famous singer. She finished the detour and it was time to return home.

It reminds me of Homer’s Odyssey in which Ulysses was stuck on the island with the beautiful Calypso for years. It was only when he escaped this island and returned home to Ithaca that his journey was complete. Greek dramatists had a wonderful word for this circle. “Nostoi” means the coming home at the end of the story. When Dee Dee returned, she was not the same young girl who had left home ten years earlier. Her experience in the world of celebrity showed her sides of life that most of us never see. And so, like a good Hero, she returned from her Journey with wisdom, which forty years later she can now share with her community, telling us what it’s like to have been famous and to have returned. Welcome back, Dee Dee. And thanks for the stories.

Click here to see Part 1 of my book review for Vinyl Highway, Singing with Dick and Dee.
Click here for the two part interview: Click Here for Part 1 and … Here for Part 2

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Brooke Shields teaches mommies and memoir writers

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by Jerry Waxler

I picked Brooke Shields’ book “Down came the rain” off the shelf. The dust jacket gave me reason to believe it was deeper than just another name-dropping celebrity puff piece. Flipping through it convinced me it genuinely focused on her issues of having a baby, and so I decided to give it a chance. Now that I’ve finished it, I can say that I liked it. It was a decent read, not because of literary genius. But even though I wouldn’t read this just for the beauty of the sentences, there is a sort of straightforward genuineness about the way it is written. It feels authentic, and I think that’s one of the most important qualities of any memoir.

In addition to a genuine voice, I also found other reasons to enjoy and recommend this memoir as a good read and a teaching tool for aspiring memoir writers. Just as the cover promised, its central function was a story about a mommy. I believe it does a lovely job of showing how a young, first time mother deals with some of the issues of having a baby. By reading this story I gained insights into what it’s like to be a troubled mom. In fact there are so many bits about how she overcame obstacles, it reads almost like an instruction book for moms, addressing the question, “how to get over the hump if your baby doesn’t feel like the best thing that ever happened to you.”

People are so saturated with the expectation that the moment of seeing the baby will be the best moment of a lifetime. But in about 10% of women, this experience is very different. Moments after the powerful physical act of childbirth, it’s possible a woman may not feel emotionally receptive to the baby, and for Brooke this lack of connection was an extremely disturbing experience, as she watched in horror at her own less than spectacular response. She does a terrific job of helping us understand this situation. Her focus on this issue kept the book interesting, tying her experiences together into a coherent whole. Here are some of the topics she covers:

  • When she felt depressed, she denied she had a problem, blamed herself and refused to rely on medication.
  • She didn’t want any help from anyone.
  • She spends a fair amount of time showing how breast feeding saved her from her depression and created a bond with her baby. (No it’s not titillating. Despite the celebrity value of those particular body parts, this discussion really is for moms.)
  • She offers a fascinating insight into the fact that having a baby changes her relationship to her own mother. Now she’s bumped up a notch in the hierarchy, no longer just a child, but now a mom as well.

I think the most psychologically insightful material was the contrast between her grandiose expectations of a perfect connection with her baby, and the real feelings she experienced, as a tired, somewhat overwhelmed and flawed human being, who does not respond in such a storybook manner.

Writing Prompt

Teaching turns out to be a lovely dimension of memoirs. Adding a teaching element to your story will help hold it together. It potentially can make your book interesting to a special-interest audience. And by binding the story into a unified whole, it gives the reader an additional incentive for turning to the next page. As you work on your own memoir, consider what sort of lessons you would share. Did you learn to garden as a method to cope while your mother was sick? Did you learn to fly an airplane, while you struggled for a job after getting out of the military? Or like Brooke, were your lessons more emotional? Explain how you and your child coped with bullying while he grew up with Down’s Syndrome. Or even more abstract still, are your lessons spiritual, like Anne Lamott’s lessons in Traveling Mercies?

As you look for teaching moments to share with your readers, stay true to the central power of memoir writing. Share your authentic experience, and as the lessons unfold, let the readers watch. Like Brooke Shields’ memoir, combine the force of your authentic voice with the unifying principles of the lessons you want to teach. So as you read “Down Came the Rain,” you could be enjoying and learning about the following aspects of memoir writing:

You may be enjoying hearing deeper background about an “old friend.” (That’s what the star system is about. While most of us have at most a few hundred people in our social network, she has a few hundred million. I don’t understand it, but there it is.)

You could be learning about how to relate to a child, especially if you feel disconnected. This information about postpartum depression could even be life saving if you’re in that situation and need tips about how to handle it.

You could be enjoying an interesting story, opening a window into the lives of people you don’t know, nor will ever experience firsthand. Since I’m not a mommy, nor a celebrity. If I want to understand what either of those experiences is like, I have to read stories about them. This expands my horizon as a human being, lets me relate more genuinely to people who are different from me, and makes my world a richer, friendlier place.

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Insights from Brooke Shields’ celebrity memoir

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by Jerry Waxler

I have been avoiding celebrity memoirs, because they often play by a different set of rules than other memoirs. They are often driven by name dropping and voyeurism, rather than great story principles. I love the pleasure of a fabulously written book, and celebrity-written books are not known for their literary merit. But I also want to know more about the insides of all kinds of people, not just literary giants. I am willing to setting aside elitist expectations of literary excellence to expand my own horizons.

All these thoughts went through my mind as I read the cover of Brooke Shields memoir, “Down Came the Rain” deciding whether to buy it or shelve it. This moment of reckoning is a great opportunity to understand the purchasing decision people will make when they pick up your memoir.

The celebrity phenomenon is a huge issue in our public life. We talk about celebrities, follow their work and their private lives, and weirdly often feel like we know them. I’m dieing to understand what makes all this so important and what it’s like for the people on the other side of the camera, and there’s the chance a memoir will provide insights.

Another reason I was willing to read this particular book is that it tells of her post-partum depression, a serious condition that I want to understand from inside. And once I started reading, I discovered she was unable to have a natural pregnancy, and so she threw herself into in vitro fertilization. I’ve heard this is a grueling experience, and I was interested to read what it felt like. She not only tells me the details of her feelings, but also provides the technical information to keep me informed and to help pace the story.

I’m pleased with the tone of the book. She has an engaging way of showing me situations, sharing conversations, and telling me how she thinks and feels, that lets me get inside the situation and feel it myself. That’s what I want from a memoir, and she is accomplishing that.

Amidst her celebrity life, she’s also human, and I was able to find insights about how life works for her. For example, in the first scene in the book, while she is backstage waiting for her cue at a live performance, she gets a phone call that tells her the fetus she is carrying is dead. Here in real life was an example of the saying, “The show must go on.” She responded to her cue and went on stage moments later. It was a great glimpse into the emotional complexity of being a performer. And it was also a good example of the unthinkable interface between normalcy and tragedy. None of us can pick the most convenient time for tragedy, and often we learn something awful at the worst possible moment.

Another celebrity-oriented aspect of her story is paparazzi and reporters. She avoids going to the hospital, because she doesn’t want to deal with the media exposure. When she’s leaving the hospital, she prepares herself to face the gauntlet of photographers. She breaks into tears, pulls herself together, pastes on a smile and walks out. The photographers lean close to her baby, and she feels a stab of fear, and then she gets into the car. She thinks, “at least none of them followed us home.” I’ve often thought this whole notion of being hounded by paparazzi is one of the most intrusive things any human being should be expected to endure. It would drive me completely nuts. And yet, performers are not supposed to complain, because it’s the attention of the media that fuels their financial success. So instead of complaining, Brooke Shields puts on a smile and keeps walking.

Such episodes may seem to apply only to celebrities. But there is a lesson here that could inform other memoirists. When the scene itself is so filled with tension, I don’t need to hear her complaint. I want to feel my own reactions, and I am perfectly capable of being sickened by this situation on my own. The fact is, complaints slow the momentum of the story. We generally want the protagonist to “deal with it” and move on.

This is the way literary memoirs work, too. Tobias Wolff, author of the superbly written “This Boy’s Life” lets the reader draw their own emotional conclusion. For example, when Wolff’s step-father steals the boy’s college savings, he asks his mother for more details about the disappearance of the money. “How could that happen?” But she doesn’t want to talk about it. She hates complaining, and changes the subject. Wolff, the protagonist is left to figure it out on his own. It’s a powerful scene, and not a bad model to follow for any memoirist looking for a tone that will carry the reader to the last page.

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Example of Character Arc in a Celebrity Memoir – Sydney Sheldon’s Other Side of Me

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by Jerry Waxler

Celebrity memoirs, sometimes limited to name-dropping, can still offer lessons, especially if the author became famous because of his successful writing. After all, as memoir writers, this is close to our own goals. We want to write, and have other people read our writing. So reading a celebrity memoir of a writer might have particular value for aspiring memoir writers.

In fact, one famous writer actually did write a memoir that is a great teaching tool. Stephen King’s “On Writing” maintains his stunning connection with his audience, and gives a great read while telling about his life. Another celebrity memoir that I read recently, is more problematic: writer Sydney Sheldon’s “The Other Side of Me.” The first part of the book is a page turner, (actually I listened to the audio book), because he struggles against insurmountable odds, using his creative talent to escape the poverty of the Great Depression. And then, when he actually becomes a successful screen and stage writer, he settles into a rhythm, telling about his productions, what famous stars he meets, what famous producers and directors he works with. His milestones seem to keep coming in such a predictable, steady manner there is no more conflict, and as a reader, I wonder why I’m bothering. It’s yet another proof of that adage that a story needs to be going somewhere, gaining ground against some kind of odds.

The beginning of the book is a GREAT rags to riches coming of age story, and the last half is a sort of gossip column celebrity name dropping fest. By the end of the book, I was feeling cheated. Then afterword bailed it out. The professional book reader stopped narrating the audio book, and Sheldon himself explained the conclusion in his own voice. One of the most compelling lines in the book was “I kept striving so hard to ‘get there’ but every time I reached a new milestone, I couldn’t find ‘there.’”

I think he added the afterword precisely because he or someone sensed there was no closure.  In the afterword,  Sheldon said he had no more need to keep writing best sellers. And I felt that in a sense, he was finally able to put down the sword and relax. Thank God! After all the pressure, and all the drive, I felt a sense of relief that he had found a ‘there.’ I don’t know if this was the intended Character Arc, but I found this summation gave me the sense of closure I was seeking.

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