Writing Hard Stories

October 31, 2016
Brooks chose a difficult story to tell in her first memoir—the death of her father from AIDS in 1995—and grappled with the question of how to do justice to such personal and knotty material in a writing genre often dismissed by others. She hit upon the idea of interviewing eminent memoirists, including Sue William Silverman, Andre Dubus III, Jessica Handler, Edwidge Danticat, and Richard Hoffman. Her goal was to know how each had survived the experience of writing about thorny parts of their lives. The result of her investigation is inconsistent, combining the interviewees’ professional advice and personal recollection with Brooks’s own voice to muddled effect. When the book focuses on the established authors, it unearths gems of insight, especially about the natures of truth, memory, subjectivity, and fact, and about what memoirs can mean to readers. And it leaves no doubt about the strength required to confront old ghosts. However, when Brooks directs the focus toward herself, the whole enterprise threatens to turn mawkish. Students of memoir writing will surely be reassured by the journeys revealed here, and fans of the authors may enjoy spending more time with them, though the book is less illuminating than it could have been.

November 1, 2016
Investigations into the struggles of rendering painful memories on the page.Acclaimed memoirist Mary Karr once said, "writing a memoir, if it's done right, is like knocking yourself out with your own fist." It's difficult and especially painful to write about dark, difficult memories. Brooks' (Professional Writing/Northeastern Univ.) own experience of trying to write a memoir about her father's death from a secret AIDS infection had been "agonizing" and "terrifying," so she decided to travel the country to interview and learn from memoirists whose books confronted these subjects head-on. Over and over, the authors told her that these were stories they had to write. Andre Dubus III felt he "had to pull out of the dark and hold up to the light" the story about his difficult relationship with his famous author father. After he finished Townie (2011),"it felt really good....I felt cleansed." Sue William Silverman's "raw and profoundly vulnerable" Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (1996) exposed 14 years of sexual abuse she suffered while her mother remained silent and "complicit." After poet Mark Doty's partner of 12 years died from AIDS, he wrote Heaven's Coast (1996): "I have not been immobilized by grief, but I have certainly carried it with me." Edwidge Danticat's "exquisite and heartbreaking" Brother, I'm Dying (2007), about her Haitian father and uncle, is a "powerful witness to the large-scale injustices so many immigrants face upon entering this country." She told Brooks that it's the "most beautiful memorial I could have created for [them]." "Gender outlaw" Kate Bornstein's A Queer and Pleasant Danger recounts "desperately [trying] to be someone she was not" and escaping the Church of Scientology to finally find fulfillment after gender reassignment surgery. Other authors interviewed include Kim Stafford, Richard Blanco, Richard Hoffman, Kyoko Mori, and Jerald Walker. An inspiring guide to ennobling personal stories that travel to the dark sides of life.

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