Late last spring, I thought it might be a good idea to read a couple of memoirs before spending my summer trying to begin my own.
I started with fellow blogger’s Marian Beaman’s newly published follow-up “My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir.” I didn’t even know what I would pick up next until I saw a television interview with Jeannette Walls which led me to her unbelievable “The Glass Castle.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t get memoirs out of my mind. I consumed Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club; B. Lynn Goodwin’s Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62; Hayden Herrera’s Upper Bohemia; Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl, Stephen King’s On Writing and Amy Turner’s On The Ledge.
When I finally got down to writing, I was mulling over questions like “Can shorter stories build a larger arc?” and “what is a hybrid memoir?” “Why do certain memoirs standout?” “What did I like about the ones I read? Or maybe what were the things I didn’t?”
Almost immediately, I recognized one feature which ran through all the finished titles, and that is a gut-wrenching honesty. More than once, I read a chapter and thought “WHAT?! That is a brave story to share with the world.”
In her interview, Jeanette Walls shared an interesting idea. I’m paraphrasing a little:
“You can tell anyone on any day about the guy who cut you off, or you can tell them about the sweet child who gave you a hug. We make these decisions all the time–which to share. We choose our truths.”
In terms of writing, one can write a memoir where none of the “truths” are wrong, but do they hit the bulls-eye of what the heart is trying to get to? The writer may be “choosing” to excavate around the uncomfortable because the memories are too painful or the writer worries about what other people might think.
As Stephen King writes in his book, “if you expect to succeed as a writer… the least of your concerns should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”
Although I would add the word “degree” here, I concur. Writers can’t wrap the truth up in a neat, little bow. I don’t think they want to either.
And so, here we are. I’ve decided to test run a single day here on the blog, one memory in the thousand tales and consequences that made me who I am. I’ll just leave it there for now.
Ed McNeil was an old friend of my father’s from his college days, but we didn’t get to see his family very often as they lived almost an hour away. They lived in a large ranch house, sitting up on a hill, and they threw the best Fourth of July parties every year.
“Ok, girls, get in the car” Dad shouted and my older sister Heidi and I hopped in the back seat, while Mom sat in the front. I was nine, and I bounced around like the Mexican jumping beans I used to play with. I was excited.
When we finally pulled into the driveway, lined with small American flags, I waved to Mr. McNeil as he came to greet us.
“Can I play croquet?” I asked him as soon as I got out of the car.
“Sure Melanie” he roared, “get that course warmed up for your dad and me,” and he walked off grinning with Dad, an arm around his shoulder. He had a big personality.
Kids were running everywhere, grabbing food off of a long table with a red checkered tablecloth. Parents found seats in aluminum-framed outdoor lawn chairs set up in various circles across the grass. Most of them had a drink or beer sitting precariously by the chairs’ legs.
After I ate a cheeseburger, I sat in the grass watching the adults, mainly men, play croquet and argue good-naturedly about the rules. Dad was in the middle of the match going on about “Vanderhoof Rules,” but his friends snorted, saying, “you always pull that Dave, just hit the ball.”
Then, thwack, it was rolling towards a wicket, with Dad laughing as it missed outside. I noticed he was drinking, of course, but to be fair, who wasn’t?
I didn’t really know the other kids there, and I was a little shy about changing that, so I was content watching the adults. In fact, I spied on my parents at home sometimes. I would sit at the top of our landing and watch and listen while it was “adults only” cocktail hours in our living room. Sometimes I did it when I was supposed to be in bed. I worried less when I knew what was going on.
I’m not sure which came first: being close to adults sparked my interest in growing up quickly, or my need to grow up quickly pushed me towards the adults’ orbit.
After ice cream and tossing water balloons at each other, the long twilight suddenly switched to full darkness. That’s when John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” blasted from speakers placed outside the living room windows.
Within a minute or two, the fireworks began. The sky just lit up that darkness like a Jackson Pollock painting. Children finally stood still in their tracks, probably weighted down by the volume of hot dogs and corn on the cob in their bellies. A lot of us, who were younger than fifteen, lay on the ground and looked straight up. Whistlers and Roman candles whizzed and whirred. People clapped throughout.
Finally, the four of us got in our car and Dad started driving home.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” Mom asked Dad.
“I’m fine,” he replied. Just for the record, he always said, “I’m fine.”
I squirmed uncomfortably in the back. I wasn’t sure whether I was getting another stomach ache from the food, or the uncertainty of who should be driving.
We were on a two-lane road with a double stripe that just kept curving into darkness. There weren’t street lights out in the country. There was a car ahead of us; a car which Dad seemed determined to get around.
“Stop tailgating that car,” Mom advised, but Dad wasn’t listening.
“What about those fireworks, girls?” he interrupted Mom. “It was a hell of a show,” he added, thumping the steering wheel once. I guess that was his exclamation point. It was also his way of getting the festive mood back on track.
“They were good,” we said, rather lamely. Our focus was on the road. Heidi and I kept peering into the space between the two front seats, watching.
During two separate attempts, Dad started turning the steering wheel to pass the driver, but he pulled back when either the stripe doubled again, or a car’s headlights appeared on the other side.
Finally, one stripe disappeared, and dad pressed the accelerator. Suddenly, we were in the left lane, moving fast, when a car came out of nowhere.
“Dave, PULL over NOW,” mom screamed.
“Almost there Gretchen,” he said.
Now we were going to hit it straight on. The car was moving to hug its own shoulder when Dad pulled it hard to the right; tires squealing. The car in front of us had sped up, and we had zero time to fall back in, but he managed it.
I heard mom whisper, “Christ, Dave. You almost killed us. Stop the car. I’m driving.”
I couldn’t see Heidi’s face in the dark, but I bet it was as pale as the moonlight on the road. Both of our hands instinctively went to our seatbelts. We didn’t say a word.
I was thinking one thought to myself, though.
“Why can’t Dad be like other dads and drink and be, okay?” As I looked out the window, the thought that maybe this night would change things and he would stop drinking calmed me.
This would not be the case though. The road only got darker.
For more on Marian Beaman, click here.
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