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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 »

Stephen Markley Interview Part 2: Humor and Politics in his Memoir

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

by Jerry Waxler

“Publish this Book” by Stephen Markley is funny from the first glance at the cover to the last page. His quirky, irreverent style of humor does not work for everyone, which is evident from the hate mail he regularly receives. But it works for me, making it one of only a handful of books that have ever made me break out into a belly laugh. In this part of my six part interview, I ask Stephen more about being funny, and about including his politics. In a later section of this six part interview, I will ask him to comment on taking so many risks in his writing.

Humor

Jerry Waxler: Your writing is really funny. A number of times I found myself laughing out loud, or muffling it so my wife didn’t think I was losing my mind. I only rarely get a belly laugh from a book, but when I do, it is a real treat. I remember years ago cracking up in a waiting room reading John Steinbeck’s affectionate account of his dog in Travels with Charley. And I enjoyed the laughs I got from a Dave Barry book, who you said was at one time one of your literary heroes. But it puzzles me how any writer could learn this skill.

Joan Rivers (“Enter Talking”) and Steve Martin (“Born Standing Up”) had to struggle for years to make people laugh. It’s a daunting goal. But at least a stand up comedian knows whether or not the joke worked. A writer doesn’t have that kind of feedback. Do you remember how you learned to get people to laugh at your writing?

Stephen Markley: Writing funny is hard, for the reasons you just mentioned, but also because people have very different ideas of what they find funny. Believe me, as I’ve tried to write funny over the years, I get diametrically opposed reactions all the time. Someone will write me and say, “That was over the top!” “Not funny.” “You’re so juvenile, get a life.” And then I’ll open the next e-mail and it will be a girl telling me something I wrote caused her to laugh to the point of involuntary urination (I swear I have gotten this on multiple occasions). Therefore, all I can say is that much like a stand-up comedian, it’s been a lifetime of trial and error.

Jerry: Could you share a trick or two to help the rest of us steer towards this valuable skill?

Stephen: Yeah, probably not. All I can say is that over the course of my life, I’ve inadvertently become friends with a lot of people who are way smarter and way funnier than me. Once you’ve surrounded yourself with smart, funny people, you can steal everything they say, do, think, and believe, put it on paper and call it your idea. This is not plagiarism but rather a kind of mental osmosis. You just gather from the best sources, put it through the sausage-maker and out comes a really funny riff about a cussing baby trying to figure out what a human nose is.

Politics

Jerry: I thought that including one’s political leaning in a book would be strictly forbidden by the industry who wouldn’t want to piss anyone off. So I was surprised that you were so outspoken about your unabashed favoritism towards Obama. (Was I dreaming or did you actually work Noam Chomsky into a conversation? I think it might even have been a pick up line?)

Stephen: Yes, a girl in a bar tells me she didn’t expect to hear Noam Chomsky quoted in a country song.

Jerry: Did you have to struggle to assert your political position? Did your publisher give you any sort of feedback or pushback about it? What sort of feedback do you get from readers?

Stephen: I never struggle to assert my politics because I think about them constantly and they’re just part of who I am. For instance, I get really pissed off at myself when I use a plastic coffee stirrer because it’s a petrochemical product I’ll use once and then toss out, thus providing financing to petro-dictators and their terrorist affiliates while deepening our energy crisis. I once kept a single plastic stirrer in my desk drawer for seven months to avoid this guilt, but it got gross.

The point is not that I’m insane (although I might be), but that I no more could have written this book without including my politics than I could have written it without including my passion for writing. They’re both just parts of me that belonged. As far as the publisher, yes, I did get pushback at first, but as the book progresses, it’s easy to see why this political vein becomes more important (and plays in heavily to the fortuitous ending). I cut some of the more extreme animosity toward Hillary Clinton because a large chunk of the book was written during that primary when tensions were running high and everyone was a little crazy, but the rest stayed.

Readers tend to love it or hate it depending on their politics obviously. I recently got a letter from this guy in Florida who said he was a conservative Republican but he still loved the book. I asked him why, and he said everything but the politics spoke to him. So I guess it’s not a deal breaker for some people, but even if it is, like I said,I don’t particularly care.

—

Notes

Visit Stephen Markley’s Home Page

To read my review of the book, click here.

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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 »

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 »

Fearlessly Confessing the Dark Side of Memory in this Memoir of Sexual Abuse

Friday, August 21st, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

When I talk to people about writing memoirs, sometimes they chuckle nervously and say, “Oh, I don’t want to remember all of that.” When I first heard this reaction, it puzzled me. Why not just skip memories you don’t want to repeat? As I learned more stories and dug deeper into my own, I found that some dark memories are so compelling they draw you in and frighten or upset you. If you try to seal them back in their crypt, they remain squirming in the dark. Or you can face them fearlessly, and stay with them until you shape them into a story.  By actively applying storytelling skills, you gain power over your memories.

Recently I heard about a memoir that offers an extreme example of this challenge. Throughout her childhood, Sue William Silverman was molested repeatedly by her father, a successful banker and diplomat. The assaults took place within the walls of their home where his manipulation and rage silenced every protest before it was uttered. Silverman’s memoir “Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You” offers the tragic story of a childhood, betrayed by the adult who was supposed to care for her.

At first, the topic of this memoir horrified me. I would have given it a wide berth, like crossing the street to avoid passing a beggar. And yet such is the magic of memoirs that it has allowed me to explore situations I would rather avoid. Reading is a powerful form of empathy. Now I pressed past my reluctance to share her experience.

I found the book disturbing as expected, and yet, in a way inspiring because of its frankness. It offers another validation that memoirs can take me into the dark pockets of the human condition. Researchers have found that a staggering percentage of children are abused. (see note) And despite the widely known statistics the human story of their plight is hidden from view. Few of us know what to say about this upsetting and confusing subject, and so the topic is avoided in polite company.

The public, with its voracious appetite for sound bites and quick solutions, is occasionally exposed to pleas for harsher sentences for the few predators who are caught. Meanwhile, abuse continues unabated, most of it taking place privately and quietly within the home.

While Silverman’s memoir does not offer a political or legal solution, it does hint at a reasonable first step. By sharing the story of the psychological damage, the trauma and breach of trust, we collectively shine light into the darkness of these private hells. Without such stories, sexual abuse is just a word, a statistic, devoid of the sad terror and emotional truths of each situation.

The silence that protects victims also protects perpetrators

Victims have important reasons for hiding the things that happened to them. There is the stigma of shame, often made worse because the victim is made to feel responsible. And there is the risk of angering the perpetrator. Until the memoir age, many wounded people have never felt empowered to share their stories. Now more people are telling and more listening. In my optimistic vision, I see memoirs tearing down walls, and I feel a surge of hope like the crowds who were swinging sledge hammers in the final hours of the Berlin Wall.

A polished voice helps to earn the public’s ear

Writing in a journal allows us to turn our feelings into words, and helps us gain power over our own thoughts. However, if you want to go to the next step and tell your story to the public, you need two more things. One is the courage to publish. And the other is the willingness to craft the experience into a readable form. Every writer discovers they need to develop skills in order to earn readers, and memoir writers are no different.

In this aspect of confession, Silverman excels. Through her writing skills, she engages my reader’s mind, moving me through each scene and then on to the next. I feel protected by her authorial presence, which occasionally cools me with beautiful language, like a drizzle tickling my skin on a hot summer day.

Her terrible story written in pleasing language, transforms me from a complete stranger to an empathetic listener, learning about the strange, complex desperate love-hatred between father and daughter. I deepen my understanding of her as an individual, and also of us as a race, perceiving the vast and sometimes horrifying range of human experience.

—

She also wrote a book to help you write your memoir
Silverman’s memoir offers an excellent model of good writing about bad memories. After writing two memoirs, she recently published a guide that can help anyone tell their story. “Fearless Confessions, a Writers Guide to Memoir” offers a roadmap through this difficult terrain.

Statistics about Child Abuse
If you think this is an isolated problem, you are probably under that impression because of the impenetrable silence that surrounds it. For statistics, click here.

For more on Sue William Silverman:

Click here for here website.

Click here for her Women On Writing Blog Tour

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Posted in Book Review, Courage to Write, Heal from Abuse | 4 Comments »

One man’s battle with sexuality changed the world

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

by Jerry Waxler

As a teenager, Frank Schaeffer was filled with lust for the young women who travelled from all parts of the world to visit the Christian center run by his parents. At the beginning of his memoir “Crazy for God,” I was beginning to wonder why there was so much sexual tension in a book that was supposed to be about religion and politics. Then, a few pages later I realized why this background was important. When he was just 18 years-old, his new girl friend became pregnant. They married and had the baby.

Like many people before him, Schaeffer discovered the shocking fact that sex has consequences, a lesson which faced him every time he changed his daughter’s diaper. As an intense young man, surrounded by preachers, he couldn’t simply leave his personal discovery alone. He had to turn it into a sermon, not against his own sexual exploits but against abortion. In a few years he was working tirelessly, a human dynamo trying to rouse Christians everywhere to stand up for the rights of the unborn.

According to Schaeffer, the evil of abortion should be as self-evident to a Christian as the law of gravity was to a physicist. And so, he thought he was doing the Lord’s work. Unfortunately, down this path rode the hounds of hell.

While the most fanatical believers of his point of view were bombing abortion clinics, a much more widespread result was burrowing into the fabric of society. The pressure of these absolute positions skewed the politics of the United States, turning churches into battlegrounds for the control of government, turning every election into a referendum on abortion.

Of course, abortion opponents make an obvious point. Murder is bad, and murdering babies is enough to wake anyone in the middle of the night, screaming for justice. But when exactly do multiplying cells become a baby? The answer differs depending on who you ask. To know the moment when abortion becomes murder, you must choose the right religious doctrine over the wrong one, a battle that has created war and terror since the beginning of history.

As Frank Schaeffer grew older, he realized how politicians were manipulating his religious ideas for their own ends. He started to notice that his rigid position frightened people. His position softened, and his respect for people with diverse beliefs grew. Most interesting for me, he came to see that the abortion debate sidles up alongside sexuality. With his help, I see that sex injects a complication into what was supposed to be a simple question of stopping murder.

Sex is the act that turns an egg into a baby, and religions have long felt the need to take control. For example, in the Bible there was a woman who took sex too lightly and the punishment was public stoning. His observation raises a fascinating issue. How many of them are fighting to contain sex? And on the other side of the debate, how many who favor abortion rights are trying to take away the consequences of sex? Finally he turned his back on the evangelical movement altogether.

If you tried to understand Frank Schaeffer at any particular era of his life, you would see only one aspect of the man. At one period, he looked like a randy teenager. Then, a confused teenaged father. After that, a zealous preacher. Later still, a hypocrite who continued to speak for large fees about things he no longer believed. Then, he looked like a starving artist, refusing those easy fees while he struggled to earn money as a novelist. Finally, you would see the Frank Schaeffer of today.

When the most recent Frank Schaeffer looks at the mob mentality around abortion, he sees a situation similar to the righteous people in the Bible who wanted to stone the prostitute. In his younger days, he was leading the charge, urging greater passion. The more mature man says, “Let’s think about it more clearly.” He certainly knew the line in the Bible “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone” but he didn’t actually hear it until he grew older.

Writing about the evolution of ideas in his memoir, Schaeffer offers a profound lesson for aspiring memoir writers. When we look back on our own history, we can see ourselves in each period, and discover the set of beliefs we held then. We couldn’t know what those ideas would look like a decade later. It’s only now, as we look back through the years, that we can understand how the ideas changed. It turns out the accumulated wisdom that we earned through the course of these years is not contained in any one snapshot of our life, but in our unfolding story.
Writing Prompt
Looking back across the span of your life, when did you believe in something strongly, even zealously, and then later come to understand that your rigid ideas had consequences? For example, did you drink, assuming it would cause no harm, only to find out later that it was ruining your liver or your family? Did you believe strongly that some group was “bad” only to later discover their depth? How did your religious or spiritual beliefs change?

Write an overview of the beliefs as they moved through time. Describe the key ah-ha moments, events, readings, and discussions that spurred you along. Write about the doubts and certainties. Show how the beliefs influenced your attitudes and choices. Explore the possibility that this evolution can support some or all of the power of your memoir.

Links
Frank Schaeffer’s official website
“Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back” by Frank Schaeffer

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Posted in Book Review, Coming of age, beliefs | 4 Comments »

Doreen Orion’s brilliant memoir about last year’s midlife crisis

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

by Jerry Waxler

When Doreen Orion’s husband noticed they were getting older, he suggested they buy a recreational vehicle, take a year off from work and drive across the country. She fought the idea at first. (What’s a story without some sort of conflict?) It sounded cramped, and she would only be able to take a hundred pairs of shoes. Eventually she gave in, went on the trip and wrote about it in this delightful memoir, “Queen of the Road.”

When I first started studying memoirs, one question I asked was “Are travel books really memoirs?” It seems like cheating, since the events just took place last year. But upon reflection and further reading, I have discovered that books like this one are lovely containers for musings and sharing of the author’s life experience. So if this is cheating, give me more.

In fact, by understanding how she put her book together, I see the goal of a memoir. It is designed to take you inside a real person’s experience of life. Inside the author’s point of view, we see what they see and how they see it. It’s the closest thing to mind-melding we can get on this planet, and if the author sees interesting things in a fun way, we enjoy the experience. Doreen Orion satisfies these goals fabulously.

As a traveler, she sees interesting stuff. Traveling across country provides endless opportunities for description, so like any memoir writer, she had to select the scenes that will add up to a good read. Her choices tend towards a mix of “famous yet quirky” like the vast Wall Drugstore in South Dakota, a huge mountain-carved statue of Chief Crazy Horse, and that strange place a guy built in Florida in the 1920′s out of chunks of Coral. (see my notes for more about these travel details.)

Her observations inside the bus are just as interesting as what took place outside. She has some great scenes with her husband, while he drives and she sits there with the dog and cats. She keeps it interesting by playing up her fear of crashing, rolling, and smashing when they approach overpass or hit a bump. She portrays her phobias with grace and humor.

Within this mix we are working through Doreen’s midlife crisis. Since I (along with a few million boomers) am recently discovering the weird fact that I keep getting older every day, midlife is a topic that is particularly interesting. Considering that both Doreen and her husband are psychiatrists, she could have applied a lot of analytical fire power, but instead of getting all heavy about it, she just has fun.

So let’s see. It’s a midlife crisis book. A travel book. A memoir. A romantic comedy. An introduction to the RV lifestyle. It even has cats and dogs. This tremendous variety becomes one of its most intriguing stylistic features. And it’s a story. Her scenes add up nicely to give me a picture of the whole trip. She lets me feel the rhythm of their day: sleeping late; socializing with neighbors in the RV camp where everyone is just passing through; unhitching their tow-along Jeep to do some sightseeing; and then back on the road, bouncing along, navigating, and making jokes to pass the time.

And that brings up a valuable lesson for writers. Just as important as the fun things she sees is the fun way she describes them. Her style is engaging and keeps the pages turning, a crucial requirement for any publishable book. I always get in trouble with the literati when I say things like this, but Doreen Orion’s memoir reminds me of Shakespeare’s plays, at least in one regard. To appeal to a mixed audience, Shakespeare laced the dialog with sophisticated innuendos for the intellectuals and gags to keep everyone guffawing. Orion does the same thing in Queen of the Road. She’s funny.

Within this simple premise of a travel book about two people at midlife, there are hidden a number of clever layers that create a wonderful read as well as a wealth of ideas that you might be able to apply to your own memoir. In fact, I find so many aspects of the memoir enjoyable and informative that when I tried writing them all, I ran out of time before I ran out of ideas. In future posts, I’ll have more to say about the many lessons from Doreen Orion’s Queen of the Road.

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Writing Prompt
Write two synopses of your memoir. The outside story will describe events in the world. The inside story will describe emotions, such as fear, hope, and disappointment. Each of these stories should feel like a journey, with a beginning, middle and end.

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Note:
About 20 years ago, I saw a documentary on public television about a guy who had built a sort of artistic compound, out of thousand pound blocks of cut Coral. I was intrigued by the weird fact that no one understood how this man moved this big rocks without any equipment. When I was in Florida, I went to see this strange out-of-the-way tourist attraction myself, and I was delighted to read Doreen Orion’s view of the place. Here is a note I found on the web with a link to the full article.

The Secrets of Coral Castle
Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, is one of the most amazing structures ever built. In terms of accomplishment, it’s been compared to Stonehenge, ancient Greek temples, and even the great pyramids of Egypt. It is amazing – some even say miraculous – because it was quarried, fashioned, transported, and constructed by one man: Edward Leedskalnin, a 5-ft. tall, 100-lb. Latvian immigrant. Working alone, Leedskalnin labored for 20 years – from 1920 to 1940 – to build the home he originally called “Rock Gate Park” in Florida City.

Crazy Horse Statue
During the 1930′s, Chief Henry Standing Bear watched in silence as faces of great white leaders emerged from the ancient granite of Mount Rushmore in his ancestral Sioux homeland: George Washington in 1930, Thomas Jefferson in 1936, Abraham Lincoln in 1937 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1939. Finally, in the fall of 1939, the Sioux leader wrote an appeal to a Connecticut sculptor who had worked on the monument: ”My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too.”

Half a century and eight million tons of rock after the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, acted on that appeal, the defiant eyes of Chief Crazy Horse once again glare across the Black Hills of South Dakota. One year from now, on June 3, 1998, sculptors plan to dedicate an 87-foot-tall version of his fearsome visage, a monument taller than the Great Sphinx of Egypt and higher than the heads of Mount Rushmore, 17 miles away.

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Posted in Boomers, How-to, Introspection, Retire | 1 Comment »

Escaping the prison of what might have been

Friday, July 25th, 2008

By Jerry Waxler

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

Tony Cohan, author of the memoir “Native State” grew up listening to his father speak about popular musicians with the awe usually reserved for gods. Cohan’s father, Phil, produced a variety show in the heyday of radio, and famous performers like Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante filled dad’s heart with admiration and also put food on his table. It was natural for young Tony to want to grow up to be one of the performers his dad revered. At 13-years-old Tony played his first gig as a drum player at a high school dance. Then he moved “up” to bars and strip clubs. A few years later, his ambition took him to North Africa and Spain, where he played with the hippest jazz performers, but nothing satisfied him. No matter how far he progressed as a musician, his life remained stuck in dimly lit nightclubs, poverty, drugs, and danger.

Flash forward a couple of decades. Cohan is earning his living as a successful writer, living in Mexico with his girl friend. This explains why he felt stuck all those years. Music was taking him in the wrong direction. He wasn’t able to find satisfaction until he escaped his original goal. Empathizing with Cohan’s frustration, I turn pages, wanting him to find his true dream.

I have met many men and women whose lives started in one direction, say towards a profession, or marriage and babies, or the family business. Then they end up somewhere else. Often the change in direction leaves them or their parents confused, as if they have disrupted destiny or lost a crucial component of their own identity.

Later in life, they look back and wonder about the discrepancy between the initial story and the later one. If they describe it as they originally felt it, it raises issues of disappointment and regret, or anger and rebellion. They feel echoes of the initial confusion. All these years later, something about the transition into adulthood still feels “wrong.” And yet if they don’t include it, the story feels incomplete, as if they are ignoring major events.

I had such a fracture in my own Coming of Age. On the rare nights when dad could get away from the store to join the family for dinner, he told stories about his customers. His tone about most people was overly familiar, jocular, often condescending. But when he talked about doctors, the tone changed. As a pharmacist, he was simply fulfilling their orders. They were his gods. I didn’t want to be one of the mortals, the everyday people who became the butt of dad’s jokes. I wanted to be one he respected. To achieve that dream, I became increasingly tense about amassing knowledge. My intellectual drive constricted my view of myself and my role in the world.

By the time I was 18, I had become hyper-focused on science, math, and medicine, and becoming a doctor was the only Truth worth living for. Then, something very strange and disturbing happened. I entered college during the sixties, when cultural and political upheaval stirred my world into a frenzy. I became interested in philosophy and literature. Shaken loose from my original obsession, I started rebelling against everything, and then dropped out to pursue some hippie utopian fantasy.

I replay the events over and over. I was a hardworking and competent young man with a well-stocked arsenal of academic gifts already in place by the time I was 18. I wanted this one thing so badly. Then, like a clown stepping on a banana peel, I slipped and fell on my ass. For years, I thought my academic pratfall meant I was a failure. I didn’t live up to my own or my father’s expectations. Now as I review Tony Cohan’s story, I see my life journey from a different point of view.

When I threw myself into the social revolution and rejected everything my father and family stood for, it was not an accident. It was a choice. Math and science satisfied me mentally but cut me off emotionally from the rest of the world. Something inside me was crying out for release. Like a prisoner who takes advantage of a riot to cover his escape, I used the sixties to help me break out.

It turned out to be a messy process. Without my father’s dream, I was on my own. In the following decades, I explored a rich variety of life styles, shared my days with a far broader set of companions, pursued creative outlets in computers and psychology, writing and spirituality. The life that I actually lived is fine, despite the fact that it’s different from the one I thought I was heading towards.

For most of my life, I have tried to forget that loss of momentum, hating the accompanying emotions of failure and regret. Who wants to dwell on the crappy past? But finally, now that I apply my storytelling intelligence, I begin to see how one boy’s life played out. The events in high school and college, while seeming so vast at the time, were just the beginning of the story, not the end. In the beginning I thought I understood how life was supposed to be. And then came the decades of learning how it actually was. As I translate the fragments of my life into my life story, I develop a much deeper understanding of my own path.

In one sense, we are all “trapped.” First we are confined by the expectations instilled in us by our family, community, and society. Second, we feel trapped by what already happened. As life plays out, our past choices limit us to only a sliver of the infinite possibilities that might have been.

Yet, in addition to these two confinements there are also two freedoms. First, we apply our intelligence and creativity to make the best choices in each new moment. Second, as storytellers, we are free to interpret our past in the most interesting and engaging way. That original story of who we were supposed to be was just a springboard. Now it is our choice to craft the story of what actually happened. By exploring the past as a storyteller, we can become more accepting of this complex person, with all the twists and energy that have emerged from the cauldron of the past.

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Writing Prompt
What initial story did you feel constrained to follow? Which parts did you end up fulfilling? Which parts did you not? Write an anecdote about a time when you felt your earlier dream slipping away. Write another one about an early image of yourself coming true.

Writing Prompt
Consider any regrets you might have about an earlier direction that felt like it slipped away. Look at those experiences as a storyteller, and create a positive reason for turning in the new direction. Write a story in the third person about a satisfied person who lived the life you actually lived. In your story, let this satisfied person meet a miserable person who followed the course you originally thought you were supposed to follow.

Writing Prompt
Another approach is to develop an alternative reality in fiction. By setting yourself free in the world of imagination, you can discover entire lifetimes. Write an anecdote about a key transition. Use it as a basis for a fictional story, and see where your imagination takes your character.

To listen to the podcast version click the player control below:

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Posted in 60's, Book Review, Lifelong Learning, My own life, Storytelling, Trauma, Writing Prompt | 4 Comments »

Fact and fiction of a girl in the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

by Jerry Waxler

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

When I was in college in 1968, I grew long hair as a protest against my parents’ generation. The old ways obviously hadn’t worked, so it was up to me to unravel everything I knew and start over. I didn’t realize that at the same time, on the other side of the world, a billion Chinese people were trying to do the same thing. Repeating slogans like “Smash the Four Olds: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas,” Chairman Mao had stirred up a frenzy against the wisdom of the past. Since education was traditionally held in high regard, smashing the “olds” included shutting down schools, mocking and denouncing teachers, and shipping students into the country to work in fields. This social movement was known as the Cultural Revolution.

Xujun Eberlein was an educated girl, living in a small city in China during that period. Her father was the president of an educational institute and her mother was a school principal so the Cultural Revolution wreaked havoc on their family. Both parents lost their jobs, her beloved older sister died, and Xujun was taken from home and inserted into a rural village to live and work with peasants. After the fanaticism waned, she returned home, then moved to the U.S. and earned a doctorate from one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But the past kept calling to her, and in the fall of 2001, she began to write stories about growing up. After several years honing her English writing skills, she started winning awards and placing pieces in competitive literary magazines. Recently she published a book of short stories “Apologies Forthcoming” based on her experience.

When I first picked up Xujun Eberlein’s book of fiction, I hoped it would offer me deeper understanding of the task of turning life into story. My hope was richly rewarded. Like any good story, her tales lifted me out my own world and offered me a glimpse of hers. I read about a little girl seeing her father on his knees on a stage, being forced to denounce himself in front of his community. In another story, a young woman tried to adjust to her new life of poverty in a rural community. In still another, the protagonist reached out to men for friendship, and for the first time confronted the complexities of sexuality. In every story I felt two things: the pleasure of losing myself, and a sense that I was witnessing a period of history through the eyes of someone who was there.

Surprisingly, my suspension of disbelief gave me the freedom to enter that world without picking it apart for historical accuracy. To learn more lessons about this connection between her stories and her history, I read one of Xujun’s memoir essays, available online in the literary magazine, The Walrus. You can read it here. It’s a wonderful and tragic story, and another window into her heart and into those times.

Like the Rosetta Stone, I tried comparing these two different versions of the same events. My comparison of Xujun’s multi-dimensional attempts to tell the story of her life gave me some of the clearest understandings I’ve had so far about how story and memoir intertwine.

While fiction can freely break loose from actual historical fact, the story must give the reader an emotionally authentic compelling experience. One of the best ways fiction writers can tap into such authentic emotions is by drawing on the realities of the world around them, and especially the world they have experienced themselves.

On the other hand, nonfiction writers must adhere to historical facts. Even though this seems to offer fewer choices, a nonfiction writer has an almost unlimited supply of raw material contained within tens of thousands of days of memories. To transform these historical facts into an engaging story we must draw on fiction techniques, such as pacing, language arts, suspense, and surprise.

As I ponder these observations, I wonder what lessons I can learn from Xujun herself. She has poured enormous amounts of time and energy in the pursuit of good stories, so I asked Xujun to discuss some of her own experiences as a writer, and what it has been like to return to an earlier time, to awaken and review her memories.

In my next blog entry, I will publish the first part of the interview I conducted with her.

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Notes:

For more details about Xujun’s life and writing, including more information about her book, awards, and other publications, see her website. http://www.xujuneberlein.com.

She also blogs about her observations about life in the United States, about China, and about life in general. http://www.insideoutchina.com

To read more interviews with fiction writers about the relationship between fiction and life see:
Interview with Naomi Gal
Interview with Jonathan Maberry

To listen to the podcast version click the player control below:

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Posted in Book Review, Cultural community, Storytelling | 3 Comments »

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