Some months ago I read a book - or at least I read part of it - by an author who was writing about childhood trauma. About thirty pages in I was emotionally exhausted, and another thirty pages found me questioning the story. I had no reason, really, to doubt the author’s truthfulness but as I stopped to skim her book reviews, I discovered that a lot of other readers felt the same way I did.
Why is this?
Here’s why: few, if any, children grow up without some kind of joy or friendship or love or hope, and a writer who doesn’t acknowledge this risks losing the trust of their readers. So as you write, ask yourself these questions:
What in your childhood brought you happiness? Did you have a friend’s house where you took refuge? Was there a book or television program that took you to another place and time? Even a special toy or an animal or a place you escaped to can provide relief for the reader. Go to these places with as much depth and enthusiasm as you go to the areas of your pain.
By the same reasoning, few people are all good or all bad. When I wrote of my mother in my third memoir, it would have been easy to rob her of maternal tendencies towards me since she was emotionally absent for most of my childhood. But then I remembered her pressing a cool cloth to my forehead when I leaned over the commode retching with the flu, I felt her love as she rode beside me in an ambulance (actually, a hearse, but you’ll have to read my memoir to find out about that) as I was taken to the hospital ninety miles away, saw her joy as I opened the slew of presents she bought me for Christmas.
These tender moments, if written with passion and honesty, can make the tragedies of which you’re writing even more powerful.
A writer who does this beautifully is Tracy Ross in her memoir, The Source of All Things. Ross was abused by her stepfather, but leading up to this central part of her story, Ross writes not only of family get-togethers and camping, but also of tender and innocent and loving moments with the only man she’d ever called “Dad”: the afternoon he helped her pull a loose baby tooth, the times he saved her from her brother’s mischief, and the days when he soothed her bruised ego.
Ross never truly lets go of these moments and I get it. There was this beyond-awful side of her dad - a sickness, a perversity - but there was also a dad who hated himself for what he did, a dad she could remember in moments of father-daughter innocence, and a dad who - wow! - could actually admit what he’d done. That doesn’t mean Ross found it easy to forgive. She didn’t. But she did a masterful job of letting us see her conflict. And conflict is what’s real.
If you’re writing this type of memoir, then, take time to steer away regularly from the heaviness of tragedy. If the person about whom you’re writing truly has no redeeming qualities - and this is unlikely - then pull someone who does into your story. It will offer you more credibility and will give your readers a more authentic look at your life.
You can buy Tracy Ross’s wonderful book here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043RSJFO/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 (The Source of All Things by Tracy Ross, Free Press, 2011
