Tag Archives: Sue William Silverman

Conflicted about American Melting-Pot: Cultural Identity in Memoir

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

America is a massive social experiment in which ethnic groups from all over the world come together and form a new blended culture by divesting some of their culture of origin. However, in the process of blending, we leave behind some of the familiarity of being in an ethnic group.This is not an easy process, since group identity can be built into our self-images through rituals, accents and food. And even built into our genes, through skin and hair color, nose and eye shape, and other inherited traits.

So what happens when you attempt to assimilate into a culture where you feel like an outsider? The dissonance between who you see at home and how you are received out in the world can create internal strife.

The feeling is highlighted in Sue William Silverman’s third memoir Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White, Anglo-Saxon Jew. In this third part of our interview, I ask her to help me understand the experiences that drove her to write the book.

Jerry Waxler: I was born into a Jewish family, and when I attempted to assimilate into American culture, I felt enormously conflicted, as if I was betraying my religious heritage by blending into the larger culture. Because the whole process required emotions that I didn’t clearly understand, I spent a lifetime in an unconscious battle, assuming that to be American I had to distance myself from being Jewish. This paradox caused endless confusion about my identity. Now that I’m reading memoirs and writing my own, I’m consciously reviewing the journey of assimilation and cultural identity. The undeniable fact that I did grow up Jewish makes me realize how ludicrous it’s been to try to pretend I’m not.

What was your experience? Say more about the process of reflecting back on your journey as a person born into a well-defined ethnic culture trying to blend into the larger culture of Americanism.

Sue William Silverman: I have a feeling we’re not alone, that many Jews are conflicted about whether – and how much – to assimilate. Growing up, I had Jewish friends who had nose bobs, or tried in other ways to look more Christian. I also have relatives who Americanized their last names in the belief they’d be more successful in their careers.

Of course there were – and are – tangible reasons for this. I grew up in a time when colleges still had quotas on the number of Jews they would accept. Likewise, housing subdivisions once had restrictive covenants to keep Jews out – as well as African Americans, and Latinos, and anyone else considered “other.” Anti-Semitism has always existed, so there are always incentives to pass.

As much as I myself once wanted to pass…I now just as much don’t want to. As you can see, I publish under my real name, “Silverman.” So no mistaking that name as anything other than Jewish. (For those of you who haven’t read my book, I’ve been married twice – and divorced twice – but, while married, I took each of my husband’s decidedly Christian names.)

I’ve now come to a much more comfortable place within myself. I owe a large part of this to the writing process. By writing the first memoir, I was able to process much of the destruction of growing up in an incestuous family. By writing Love Sick, I was able to work through the shame of a sexual addiction. Now, by writing The Pat Boone Fan Club, I’ve been able to explore the ambiguous feelings toward Judaism while growing up and, through this exploration, am much more accepting of myself, more at peace.

Notes
Sue William SIlverman’s Home Page
The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

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

Stylistic Choices in Creative Nonfiction, Interview Pt 2

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

In this second installment of my interview with Sue William Silverman, we continue to talk about her latest memoir The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. In the first segment, I asked her about her stylistic choices. In this one, I dig a little further, trying to learn more about the unusual writing style with which she successfully portrayed a woman attempting to blend into the dominant culture.

Jerry: You seem so obsessive about pop culture. In addition to your passion for Pat Boone, you show how you were afraid to move from one city to another because your new home doesn’t have a cable channel with your favorite television show. And later in the book, you seem to be obsessed with Superman. As I’m reading this memoir, I’m feeling that you are relying on pop culture as a sort of talisman to ward off your fears and insecurities. By immersing yourself in pop culture, you hope to finally melt into the melting pot. That’s a fascinating part of your story, and you do it beautifully, but you communicate your obsession in a really unusual way. You show your obsession by diving so far in, you become a character inside the pop culture. Rather than an observer, your writing takes you into the stories of pop culture so when reading the memoir, I feel like I’m inside your mind, and your mind is inside the television show, or the fan-worship or the Superman comic. Tell me more about those stylistic choices.

Sue William Silverman: One section of the book you’re referring to is “I Was a Prisoner on the Satellite of Love,” in which I was obsessed with the TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000, which is now (sadly) off the air. Not only did I love the show, but I was particularly smitten with one of the robots on it, Crow.

Anyway, I wrote the chapter or section almost as if it were an episode of the TV show, so I included Crow, adding his interjections at appropriate times.

Here is a short excerpt from it to better show what I mean. My writing is in blue and I put in red ink the sections where Crow speaks, and these are real lines of his, from the TV show, that I “borrowed” for my book.

To set the scene: My husband, “M,” and I have just flown into Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we’re moving for his new job, from our home in Georgia.

Rich, our realtor, glides to the curb in a black Jaguar. He leaps from the car, enthusiastically welcoming us to west Michigan. I barely shake his hand before collapsing in the back seat, forcing M. to sit in front. Let him schmooze with Rich, listen to the glowing Chamber of Commerce sales pitch. Let him hear about this “perfect” house, that “perfect” neighborhood. [“Hour after hour of heart-pounding small talk,” Crow says, in a mock-stentorian voice.]

Just two years ago…, we bought our first house [in Georgia], only recently completing the re-decoration. That’s the house in which I want to live. But now, because of this job offer, we must sell it. I must give up my adjunct teaching job. I must leave my therapist and my group. [“Goodbye,” Crow calls. “Thanks for the Valium!”] Worse, I fear I might also have to leave Crow – Crow, the robot, whom I think I love more than my husband. At least it feels as if I’m leaving Crow behind. Surely, though, I reassure myself, cable television stations in Michigan – just as in Georgia – must air the Comedy Central series Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which Crow is one of the stars. But all in all it feels as if I’m leaving my life behind—or as if I’m being abandoned. [“Does anyone have a copy of Final Exit?” Crow asks, innocently.]

In another chapter of the book, “An Argument for the Existence of Free Will and/or Pat Boone’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” I write as if I’m part of a Superman and Lois Lane comic book, an episode in which the young singing sensation Pat Boone visits The Daily Planet. This comic book, published back in 1959, actually exists.

It seemed the perfect invented structure in which I, playing the role of a newspaper reporter, could interview Pat Boone to help him understand why he hasn’t been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (because of his conservative political and religious views). It’s not a conversation I could ever actually have in person with him, so I surreally portray us all as comic book characters, a format in which I could encourage Pat Boone to be more of a liberal Democrat, along those lines.

Why do this? Because by playing with structure and format (that TV show and the Superman comic book), I’m better able to draw both myself as well as the reader inside the actual experience. Everything we write needs to have its own voice, its own tone, its own structure to best work in conjunction with the content and context.

One thing I love about creative nonfiction is its openness of form. It’s a genre that encourages writers to experiment and push the envelope.

In the next section of the interview, I ask Silverman more about the angst of assimilation and her desire to be included as an “Anglo-Saxon.”

Notes
Sue William SIlverman’s Home Page
The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

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

Courageous Memoir Author Explains Stylistic Choices

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

Sue William Silverman’s three memoirs offer inspiring examples of a writer’s willingness to overcome shame in order to share her story. Her first, I Remember Terror Father dealt with the shame of childhood sexual abuse. The second, Love Sick, takes us on the journey of sexual addiction. Her latest memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew, tackles the strange and often hidden world of trying to fit into the dominant culture.

Shame is a crucial emotion. As John Bradshaw, the “shaman of shame” points out in his books and lectures, shame has a good side and a bad side. On the good side it keeps us behaving in a socially acceptable manner. A “shameless” person has no concept of social responsibility. On the dark side, shame makes us feel bad about ourselves, and as a result we stay silent about the things that cause it. Memoir writers must fearlessly face these aspects of ourselves, as emphasized in Silverman’s excellent book about memoir writing, whose title”Fearless Confessions” highlights the fact that courage is one of the prerequisites for writing a memoir.

As a Jew, Sue William Silverman grew up feeling like an outsider who wanted to fit in. The shame of being an outsider is familiar to anyone who feels like they don’t belong, whether because of skin color, religion, acne, birth mark, frizzy hair, stutter, poverty, or any of a thousand other causes for self-consciousness.Those of use who are the recipients of prejudice, whether real or imagined, must figure out how to overcome our sense of being different. Sue William Silverman’s book Pat Boone Fan Club takes advantage of the author’s willingness to share her shame and tell a story about her own journey to come to terms with her difference.

In the next few posts, I invite her to answer questions about her memoir, writing about assimilation, and how she developed the particular style of this book.

How does a “dreamy style” work in nonfiction
Jerry: Hi Sue William Silverman. I just reviewed my notes and see our first interview took place in 2009. So nice to speak to you again! And thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions about Pat Boone Fan Club.

In your latest memoir, Pat Boone Fan Club, you take us on your journey through your obsessive, desperate, and for the most part, not-logical side of yourself, trying to see yourself reflected in the mirror of our cultural icons – you select Pat Boone as the representative of the most vanilla, most iconic “all-American” pop culture figure. You seem to be saying, “If only I could connect with Pat Boone, I would finally and completely become an American.”

Because this is a memoir, I would ordinarily assume it was all “factual” but because your account of the interview with Pat Boone is so dreamy, I can’t tell if it takes place as a sort of imaginary sequence in your own mind. Could you help me understand your stylistic choice.

Sue William Silverman: The meetings with Pat Boone absolutely take place! The three encounters with him are at the heart of the book. I interweave the actual meetings, our dialogue and interactions, with my thoughts – what you’re calling “dreamy.” Generally speaking, much of memoir is discovering the story behind the story, a movement toward what the facts mean. A simple rendering of “this happened, then this happened, and then this next thing happened,” is only part of a memoir. The other part is to be brought inside the narrator’s reflection of these events – what the author/narrator thinks about these events now, as she’s writing.

Let me show you an example from the book, which should clarify this. First, though, a quick summary: Pat Boone is a 1960s pop-music idol, now better known as a Christian conservative and wholesome, squeaky-clean family man with four daughters. In the book, I write about how, growing up, I had a crush on him. The crush went deeper than the fact that I liked his music. I wanted him to adopt me. Since my own father, my Jewish father, misloved me, Pat Boone seemed the safest man on the planet. In this memoir, I explore my ambiguity toward Judaism and my desire to pass as Christian, be part of the dominant culture and religion.

Anyway, okay, back to your question. In this short excerpt, the factual story is in blue ink, and I’ve inserted my thoughts and reflections in red ink. Just to set the scene, this takes place in Pat Boone’s green room after his Christmas concert. Marc is my partner who accompanies me. You also need to know that I am recovering from a rather serious illness. Pat Boone has just entered the room.

Marc and I stand up from the couch.

“Can I hug you?” Pat Boone asks, smiling.

When he enfolds my frail, ailing body, it feels like a laying on of hands.

Pat Boone will cure me.

“Would you like to sit here?” Marc nods toward the couch, beside me, where he’d been sitting.

Pat Boone shakes his head, pulling a chair directly in front of me. “This way I can see her better.”  Meaning me.  He settles onto the chair….

Pat Boone points to the velvet flower embroidered on my lavender jacket.  “At home, hanging on my wall, I have a photograph of a flower growing up through concrete,” he says.  “Like you.  Your childhood.  You are like a flower growing up through concrete.”

This is Pat Boone, too.  Not just the religious conservative.  But the April-love-love-letters-in-the-sand Pat Boone.  The Pat Boone offering innocence.  Redemption.  Answers….

He is as I always envision: perfect hair, smile, teeth, wife, daughters, career, life.  But I struggle to pay attention as he talks.  I’m weak, dizzy.  I’m just hoping not to pass out.  Even as I lean toward him, smiling, an enormous sadness wells up inside me.  I want to tell Pat Boone I’ve been ill.  I want him to know I was worried I’d miss the concert.  I’m equally sad that I look thin and frail.  I’d wanted to be perfect for him, match his own seeming perfection.  Instead, my skirt hangs loose.  I notice a small rip in the flower on my jacket.  My hair is limp, my face wan.  My only hope is that he won’t notice how sick I appear.  I don’t want to spoil this meeting after anticipating it for so long.

Hopefully, from reading the above, you can see how I move between the actual action unfolding – the “outer” story – and my own thoughts, or the “interior” story.

In the next part of the interview, I ask her about how she used pop culture as an entry point for her fantasy about becoming a “real” American.

Notes
Sue William SIlverman’s Home Page
The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

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

Getting to Know Memoir Author Sue William Silverman

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

Sue William Silverman’s first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You took me into the disturbing experience of childhood sexual abuse. Even though the book was written entirely from the point of view of the child, I had the feeling I was standing shoulder to shoulder with an adult trying to understand and explain her own childhood. By the time I finished reading her memoir, I felt like the two of us had taken an important journey together.

Five years later, when I read her memoir Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew, I felt like I was back in the company of an old friend. This sensation demonstrates an important feature of the Memoir Revolution. Through our stories, we are getting to know each other in the amazingly intimate method of seeing the world through an author’s eyes.

Getting to know someone intimately naturally invokes the familiar euphemism. To “know” someone in the Biblical sense means having sex with them. It turns out that Sue William Silverman has been on a lifelong journey to understand the difference between these two types of knowing. And her three memoirs lead us on the evolution from the quick sexual form of knowing to the longer one of mutual respect and support.

In her first memoir, her father tries to “know” her in the wrong way. By entering into a sexual relationship with her, he short-circuits the little girl’s need for the deep, trusting relationship her parents are supposed to teach.

As a young woman, she puts into practice the lesson her father taught her. In the memoir Love Sick, she carefully orchestrates sexual liaisons with men who have absolutely no interest in relating to her emotionally.

In the third memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club, she tries to grow beyond those limitations by seeking to understand her place in culture. As a young woman, she adores Pat Boone from afar. Then as a news reporter she begins to turn her cultural intrigue into the written form that she could share with her readers.

Through the course of decades, starting from childhood, then young adulthood, and then middle adulthood, she attempted to become a wiser more complete person. Then, in her later adulthood, she looked back across the years. Not content with keeping her lessons to herself, she needed to organize it all into memoirs that she could share. Thanks to her hard work, Silverman generously let readers experience her long painful evolution.

Then, she pressed on again, teaching others how they too could write their stories. In her book Fearless Confessions she shows how to find and share the story of your own life, creating a magical bond between author and reader that helps all of us grow wiser.

Stephen King, in his book On Writing, points out that writing is like magic. It allows us to telepathically know what is in someone else’s mind. In fiction, this magical effect takes us inside the imagination of the writer. Memoirs are an even more intimate form of telepathy, transporting readers into the dramatically compelling events that shaped the author’s life.

In the spectrum of human relationships, memoir readers are at the opposite extreme from Silverman’ emotionally unavailable sexual partners. Memoir readers are capable of emotional, intellectual and even spiritual intimacy. We want to experience the whole story.

Note about Knowing in the Biblical Sense
Speaking of books that take us inside characters’ lives, I came across a popular book called The Story NIV, which claims the Bible is a story of God’s relationship with society. The book calls into question the expression “knowing in the Biblical sense.” If the Bible is a sort of memoir that lets us know God in an intimate way, perhaps “knowing in the Biblical sense” implies getting to know someone intimately through his or her story.

Notes
Sue William SIlverman’s Home Page
The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

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