“In the past, memoir was the country of old people, looking back, a reminiscence. But now people are disclosing their lives in their twenties, writing their first memoir in their thirties, and their second in their forties. This revolution in personal narrative that has unrolled across the American landscape in the last two and a half decades is the expression of a uniquely American energy: a desire to understand in the heat of living, while life is fresh, and not wait until old age—it may be too late. We are hungry—and impatient now.”
–Natalie Goldberg, from the introduction of Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
About my writing.
For many years, I wrote in secret. My friends brought me typing paper; they mailed my earlier essays. They celebrated when I was published, and when my husband found out he simply negated my art, my ability, until after the divorce.
When I thought he couldn’t hurt me further, and it was easy to write, easier to edit, smooth sailing to complete the final copies, send them out and hope for acceptance.
I never thought he would use blackmail – stealing the kids’ affection, telling them I was crazy and I really didn’t care about them …. They said – on cue – I was selfish and inconsiderate – in court… but they really did not know what they were talking about. The way they lived erased me from their concern ….
And it worked. They stayed away … my son and first daughter still. My younger daughter came back when she was seventeen and now we are close, but I know that this is her decision .
My memoirs are deep and thick, but they swirl around in the sink, slowly pulling me down into depression, the cycle repeating. I stopped hoping for reconciliation…. And yet….