…as I was earlier:
In this case, however, the subject isn’t “bad memory” in the sense of “Huh? Did I just say something?” It’s more along the lines of, “Holy sh!t. Did I actually live through that?!?”
Via the MAD about Words blog (discovered, in turn, via DCWYTBMA), we have word of a definitive list — from Entertainment Weekly, of all unlikely sources — of an enormous range of recent memoirs and autobiographies:
The genre shows no signs of slowing down, though it’s difficult to imagine a narrative that’s left unexplored. ”The bar keeps going higher,” says Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. ”Well, you were a drug addict, but did you kill anybody? Well, you killed somebody, but did you do it with your bare hands? Well, you were hungry, but were you as hungry as Frank McCourt?…”
What follows is a selective list — believe it or not, we actually left some stuff out — of memoirs that have been written since 1995. (Sorry, Ms. Walters, one of the things we’ve omitted is celebrity autobiographies.) So take a look and see if your life, or something resembling it, has already been spoken for.
Now, it’s true that most of the four-page (!) listing describes no one with whom I, or quote possible you, actually grew up. There are some, to be sure:
Childhood
Grew up…
In Texas: A Strong West Wind, by Gail Caldwell (2006)
In the Midwest: Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships, by John T. Price (2008)
In Pittsburgh: Hoop Roots, by John Edgar Wideman (2001)
In Wisconsin: Falling Through the Earth, by Danielle Trussoni (2006)
But it doesn’t take long for things to assume a more… more… surrealistic posture (still from the Childhood/Grew Up category):
In a polygamous sect: Stolen Innocence, by Elissa Wall, with Lisa Pulitzer (2008)
In a Hmong refugee camp: The Latehomecomer, by Kao Kalia Yang (2008)
In a remote Himalayan village: Leaving Mother Lake, by Yang Erche Namu and Christine Mathieu (2003)
In a neighborhood tavern: The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer (2005)
In a psychiatrist’s home: Running With Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs (2002)
In the Playboy Mansion: Playground, by Jennifer Saginor (2005)
In Macbeth’s castle: A Charmed Life, by Liza Campbell (2007)
In a haunted house: I’m Looking Through You, by Jennifer Finney Boylan (2008)
By the time you reach page 4, you may well be wondering by what miracle of exemption you, personally, ever managed to become the person your present-day next-door neighbors (as opposed to the guards at the state hospital) would recognize. Some f’rinstances (categories in parentheses):
(Struggles/Endured)
Murder attempts by two girlfriends: Thick as Thieves, by Steve Geng (2007)
Buying a piano: Grand Obsession, by Perri Knize (2008)(Foodstuff/Decided to)
Evoke his childhood via the food his mother cooked: Toast, by Nigel Slater (2004)
Tell the story of her courtship through food: Cooking for Mr. Latte, by Amanda Hesser (2003)
Eat everything she could in China, no matter how strange: Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, by Fuchsia Dunlop (2008)
Eat anything, no matter how disgusting: The Year of Eating Dangerously, by Tom Parker Bowles (2007)(Death/Dealt with loss of)
Pet ducks, rabbits, and a parrot: Fowl Weather, by Bob Tarte (2007)
But my absolute favorite was:
(Suffered from)
A lobotomy: My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming (2007)
(Yes: Dully. The truth about memoir is stranger than the truth about fiction.)
The list certainly provides food for thought to anyone hoping to publish a memoir of plain-old everyday childhood.
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