memoir Archives - Page 4 of 8

May 13, 2015May 12, 2015

Q&A with Tara Ison, author of REELING THROUGH LIFE

I went away, to have adventures; I’d lived a sheltered, landlocked life, too, and maybe I needed that shock and grope we experience when stripped of our context. What the hell had I experienced? What real experience had I even seen?
~ from REELING THROUGH LIFE: HOW I LEARNED TO LIVE, LOVE AND DIE AT THE MOVIES

It’s the rush of A/C when you walk through the door, the expanse of the screen as it comes into view. Buttered popcorn, the angled seat, the thrill when the lights dim, the images and surround sound that immerse you in the lessons on life–real or imagined. The cinema. Where a great movie will tap into your fears, your hopes, your dreams, and leave you changed. Or, at least entertained.

In REELING THROUGH LIFE: HOW I LEARNED TO LIVE, LOVE, AND DIE AT THE MOVIES, Tara Ison explains that for her, though, movies represent much more than entertainment. Baptized in motion pictures at an early age, she began a relationship with movies that, as she says in her new memoir, “taught me how to light Sabbath candles, how to seduce someone with strawberries. Bulldoze my way past writer’s block. Go a little crazy.”

For Tara Ison, “the movie theatre has been a classroom.”

I’m thrilled to host Tara Ison today, as she talks about her memoir, movies, and writing.

There’s also a giveaway! Drop your name in the comments by Tuesday, May 19th, for a chance to win a copy of REELING THROUGH LIFE, where you’ll read (among other topics) about romance, religion, and Mrs. Robinson.

CC: Your parents began taking you to movies at a very young age. And, not just Disney or G-rated shows, but movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Taxi Driver (at twelve!). I saw Clockwork Orange at the naive age of sixteen and–holy cow–that was of my own accord (and I wasn’t remotely prepared). Was there ever a conversation with your parents later on about growing up under the glow of mature cinema?

TI: Funny you mention A Clockwork Orange – a recent episode of Louie had Louis CK very upset when he found out his teen daughter had watched that at a sleepover! And he tries to explain to his daughter why he feels it was inappropriate at her age, and she just laughs it off.

When I was young my parents didn’t really “debrief” with me after watching these movies – and I wish they had. I think some discussion about my experience of such films – was I confused? frightened? disturbed? – would have helped me process my feelings, given me more context, allowed me to work through and express my thoughts. I asked my father about a year ago, while I was working on this book, if he and my mother ever worried or wondered about the effect on me of such “mature cinema,” as you say, and he was quite surprised by the question – he said No, it never occurred to either of them to wonder about that.

I do think some of their attitude had to do with the times. We’re talking about the late 60s and early 70s, and my parents were part of a far more permissive culture – no rules, no boundaries (or very few!). I’m sure they just thought they were being wonderfully open-minded – and hey, it was also a stunning and revolutionary era of cinema. They probably felt they were exposing me to an important art form….

And I also have to say that I’m glad they erred on the side of “exposing” me to film, books, art, culture – they took me to the theatre, to concerts, encouraged my reading anything I wanted. I do believe that was far more valuable for me than if they had limited my experience – in hindsight, I’m very grateful to them.

CC: In your book, you talk about your experience with movies in the same way other people might discuss religion–as a means to measure ourselves, our success, our level of “normalcy.” Now that you’ve written this book on how art and life come together with such effect, do you still view movies with the same intensity or need?

TI: I do feel the same need, the same desire to immerse myself in story – to escape, be entertained, be illuminated, be able to see myself and my own experience reflected back to me. That need is part of our DNA as humans, and I don’t ever want to lose the joy or richness of that experience.

But I also think – or I’d like to think – I’m a little more aware of the effect, or possible influence, at this point in my life. Especially having written the book – I have more context now for those “life lessons” (how to be a Jew, a drunk, a writer, how to die with style or deal with illness, how to go crazy, how to love, how to have sex…), and I can reflect upon the images or models we’re given with the benefit of actual life experience. I’m more able to sort through where/when I’m measuring myself against a cultural or cinematic “model” vs. what actually feels authentic.

CC: What is your all-time favorite movie that you would watch again and again and why?

TI: I don’t know if this my “all-time favorite” (I don’t think I have one – there are far too many to appreciate…), but I do wish I’d spent some time discussing Paper Moon – that film had a huge impact on me, and I’ll never tire of watching it. It could have fit very nicely in the “How to be Lolita” chapter – I’m the exact same age as Tatum O’Neal, and here is a little girl who has no interest in being pretty or cute or precociously/flirtatiously bratty, she isn’t sexualized at all, she’s smart and independent, and relies on her wits and her own judgment. I can’t think of another little girl character who is granted such agency, is allowed to self-determine and self-define herself with as much equity as the grownup characters surrounding her. Sure, yes, she’s a con artist…but that character is quite a role model, in many ways!

CC: What are you reading these days?

TI: A lot of student work! I’m just finishing up the spring semester, so looking forward to making progress on my summer reading list – looking forward to: Life Drawing, by Robin Black, Gangsterland, by Tod Goldberg, A Solemn Pleasure, by Melissa Pritchard, Scrapper, by Matt Bell, The Daughters, by Adrienne Celt, just to name a few.

CC: As a writer, what piece of advice you turn to often?

TI: Well, to quote from the movies…from the film Julia, when Julia says to childhood friend Lillian Hellman:

Julia: Work hard. Take chances. Be very bold.

I should probably have that tattooed on myself somewhere…

And also from Julia – when Lillian Hellman is complaining about how hard it is to write, and her lover Dashiell Hammet says to her:

Dashiell: Well, if you really can’t write, maybe you should go find a job. Be a waitress. Nobody’ll miss you. If you’re going to cry about it, go stand on a rock. Don’t do it around me. If you can’t write here, go someplace else. Give it up. Work in a drugstore. Be a coalminer. Only just don’t cry about it.

Which I love. Basically: So, it’s hard, yeah. Get over it. Nobody cares. Stop whining. Give it up, or get back to work!

Tara Ison is author of the novels The List (Scribner), A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, Inc.), a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press), which was featured as one of the “Best Books of Summer” in O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2013. Ball, a short story collection will be released this Fall from Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press. More detail can be found at www.taraison.com and www.softskullpress.com.

REMEMBER: leave your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of REELING THROUGH LIFE!

August 13, 2014August 12, 2014

Telling the Truth in Memoir

* Playing off of last week’s post, here’s a reprint of an article I originally wrote for Write It Sideways.

“Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.” ~Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club

I don’t plan on writing a memoir. My life may be busy and fulfilling, chaotic and frustrating at times, but I doubt I could compile my 42 years into a riveting 300 page book of Me. Still, there are certain stories my gut wants me to put down on paper.

Like the one about the summer I turned twenty-two, when I climbed into the back seat of a tiny Isuzu Trooper and rode all the way from Norman, Oklahoma to the Catskills of upstate New York. So much changed for me during that trip, change embodied in the green hills of Pennsylvania as they rose and fell alongside me like waves. I left in one state of mind and returned a totally different person: tan, nursed by the woods of Rhinebeck, New York. And, in love.

And another about how, the week after my mother died, I desperately clung to whatever artifacts of hers I could, from her Bible to that pair of gaudy glasses she wore in the late eighties. Those glasses sat out on a table at my house for months, maybe a year. Why did she keep them, and why couldn’t I let them go?

As I begin to put some of these memories down into tiny essays, I realize more and more that memoir—in long form or in short—presents an ongoing challenge: that of telling the truth.

The Fact of the Matter

It isn’t that I don’t remember the details, or that I worry about who said exactly what. When it comes to memoir and memories, you “tell the stories as accurately and artfully as your abilities allow,” as Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd say in Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction.The Who, What, Where and When of a story shouldn’t vary between two people, but the How or Why might unfold in entirely different ways.

After my road trip from Oklahoma to New York that summer, I flew home to visit my parents and discovered that their marriage was quickly falling apart. Or perhaps, after too many years of strain, the threads holding them together finally unraveled. Either way, in the months that followed, I found myself in the middle of their divorce. By choice, but also because I didn’t know better. Certain events and conversations stick with me in uncomfortable ways, so I’ve tried to write about them. The facts are set down easily enough; it’s everything in between—and the potential effects afterward—that present the hazards.

Emotional Consequences

“There is a ripple effect each time a memoir is published, and while the memoirist cannot fully prepare for it, he or she should expect it.” ~ Anthony D’Aries in Writing Lessons: Memoir’s Truth and Consequences

The ripple effect, that’s what I worry about. How can I write what I saw and heard and felt and avoid shedding negative light on someone I love? Do I need to write those stories? Even more important, must I share them?

I’m a writer. It’s what I do, how I understand the world around me. And, I know I’m not alone in walking this tricky line when writing about personal experiences. So, I’ve been studying books, talking with other writers, and asking for critiques of my early drafts. Here are a few tips I’ve picked up so far:

First drafts are for your eyes only. Sometimes, I have to get through all the weird and uncomfortable and (what feels like) an inventory of wrong-doing before I get to a place of real understanding or peace about an event. First drafts offer a safe haven for such writing, because I’m the only one who will be reading the work at this point anyway.
Check your motives. Through each rewrite after that first draft, I ask myself, Why am I writing this? And, who is the main focus in this story? Never, ever, write for revenge. And, as Kidder and Todd in Good Prose say, “Be harder on yourself than you are on others. . . . You will not portray [them] just as they would like to be portrayed. But you can at least remember that the game is rigged: only you are playing voluntarily.”
Share the story with someone you trust. I’ve requested feedback from a family member as well as other writers on some of my recent work, asking if my story reads full of self-pity or too much criticism of another or less literary and more fit for my journal. When writing memoir, friends or family may be just as valuable as writing partners.
Let it go. After I’ve checked my motives and revised an essay time and again, after I’ve discussed it with someone else (and rewritten it one more time), then I have to let it go. Like D’Aries says, we cannot control what others think or how they see an event in comparison with the way we saw and understood it. But, if we’re driven to put our stories on paper, and share them with others, then we have to be ready to face every consequence—good and bad.

When writing memoir or personal essays, how do you move beyond the anxiety of telling the truth?

October 16, 2013October 14, 2013

When Writing and Real Life Intersect: Guest Post by Trish Ryan

I’ve written before about my belief in a Power greater than myself that helps me maneuver through life. And, writing (no plea is too silly). I’m not alone. When it comes to writing, plenty of authors talk about a spiritual nature that took them from here to there and well beyond their imagination. Today I welcome Trish Ryan, author of the memoir, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, who tells us a little about her journey and her encounters with that “still small voice” (or, not so small as it may be).

My Journey from Dreaming to Doing

I didn’t always want to be a writer. In college, a professor thought I’d make a good lawyer, and I grabbed that vision and ran with it.

A few years later, I was a litigation associate at a mid-sized firm in Philadelphia, defending grocery stores against plaintiffs who’d injured themselves slipping on produce. I wasn’t clear why I was doing this, and billing my time in six-minute increments made me so miserable I could barely face Mondays.

I left law to pursue a graduate degree, but soon had a chance to work for a bestselling author. That’s where I learned what life as an author looks like, how it doesn’t have to be long hours sequestered in some garret, perfecting the prose; it can be capturing sentences whenever they occur, letting the world wait a moment while you jot down an idea. That, I could do.

I jotted my own sentences on restaurant napkins and odd pieces of paper. The trouble was, I had lots of ideas about how life works, but no story. Good writing is about what happens when our ideas intersect with real life. For that, I had to to wait.

A few years later, I was at a family funeral, driving down the road feeling pitiful, thinking about my cousins and their amazing families. I’d tried and failed repeatedly at romance, and wondered if I’d ever make it work. At a stoplight, I heard a voice in my head that sounded (don’t laugh!) like James Earl Jones. He said, “I have more for you. I have a husband for you, a family…everything you want. But you need to take Jesus seriously.” It’s a sign of how unhappy I was that my response wasn’t surprise or questions, but simply, “Well, okay. If it’ll help…”

I was fairly sure no one else in Cambridge, Massachusetts was taking Jesus seriously; I figured I’d need to move to Nashville or Tulsa, get some high hair and some awkward-looking clothes. But if it would improve my chances to build a happy life, I was willing to try.

Then a friend told me about a church our city where there were real Christians. The next Sunday I went, feeling like an anthropologist observing a rare tribe that has wandered from its habitat. I was surprised: by the smart, friendly people, by a sermon that made sense, and by how I felt when I left: hopeful, like a small door was opening and I wanted to walk through and see what was on the other side.

On the other side, it turns out, was my husband. Now I had a story. I decided to write a book to encourage women that God cares about our romantic lives.

As I wrote, I studied the publishing industry: Did I need an agent? How should a book proposal be structured? What would make my query letter compelling? I spent hours pouring over author and agent websites, learning how to give my project legs in this business.

I picked an agent to query – I’d read and liked two books by authors she represented. She didn’t typically take on spiritual titles, but she’d just had lunch with an editor who’d said, “I’m looking for something like Eat, Pray, Love, only Jesus-ey…”

That editor bought the project, and helped me shape He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope & Happily Ever After into a book that appeals to readers of all faiths (or none at all). Two years later, I published A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances, about figuring out how to live into this idea of happily ever after.

Now, I have a bigger dream: a bookstore shelf filled with books written by me and others, each sharing stories of what happens when you believe more is possible in life than circumstances might suggest.

We just put out a new edition of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, and it includes a preview of my new project, The Courage to Ask: Thoughts on Praying for A Husband. In all of this, moving from dreaming to doing still comes down to what I learned working for that author all those years ago: grab ideas and write them down when they occur. Let the words and the work pile up in small segments, day after day, then see how they weave together. Learn and adapt as you go. Push through until you type, The End. This is how dreams become reality.

Trish Ryan is an author, speaker, and writing consultant. She lives outside Boston, Massachusetts with her husband Steve and their genetically improbable mixed-breed dog, Kylie. She is the author of two memoirs about the intersection between the search for the right guy and the right God. You can connect with Trish via her website, www.Trishryanauthor.com, on Facebook (Trish-Ryan-Author) or Twitter: @Trishryan.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not is available for purchase HERE on Amazon.