In one of my favorite David Sedaris essays, he imagines himself saying to his younger sister: “Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow -- it's not like you're going to do anything with it.”
In that moment, he recognizes a writer’s selfish compulsion to see every moment as opportunity to get a laugh; compose a clever line; or, record biting real-life dialogue. Fortunately for his fans, Sedaris easily shrugs off the guilt and plods along showing the underbelly of suburban life and the morose cobwebs of his self-obsessed psyche. In his brief acknowledgement that not everything can or should be used as writing fodder, the humorist summarizes the dilemma that every writer faces. How much truth is too truthful? When does the personal essay become too personal? Can essayists be too self-evolved?
“Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays,” says E.B. White, one of the most significant and influential essayists of the Twentieth Century. He also ruminates, in his Forward to the Essays of E.B. White, about the negative consequences associated with being a memoirist. “I have been aware that I am by nature self-absorbed and egoistical; to write of myself to the extent I have done indicates a too great attention to my own life, not enough to the lives of others.”
Memoirists tend to be stars of their own story. So, when loved ones see themselves relegated to supporting characters in the writer’s drama, they become like teenagers holding the latest issue of the high school annual, looking for what kind of hair day they were having and how clear their skin looked in particular photographs. Often, they don’t like the rendering. So, they make Photoshop requests. A little less color here and little more contrast there until all flaws have been removed, along with the truth.
If essayists have compassion, don’t already have wildly successful careers making fun of their parents and siblings, and don’t have multimillion dollar book deals with publishing houses that expect caustic humor and embarrassing revelations, they will edit their works to either reflect a more positive image of their complainant; pick a different butt of the joke; or, delete the story altogether.
Another option for essayists is to use disclaimers. So, I have come with a few: “To protect identities, real names and distinguishing characteristics have been changed, but really don’t sue me or kick my ass."
But I am also toying with “Remember back in the day when I lied all the time? Now I lie and call it art.” Or , “My story. My blog. Screw you.” Those might still need a little work. So as an alternative, I have been changing details about my life and the people in it.
My working class hometown in Central Pennsylvania is now an upper-middle class suburb in Massachusetts; my steadfast but occasionally cruel mother becomes a benevolent Mrs. Brady clone with rosy cheeks; and, my impulsive husband who lets the kids eat ice cream for dinner becomes a workaholic with obsessive compulsive hand-washing; my in-laws no longer are Texans with funny accents but are New Yorkers with funny accents.
I create charts, diagrams, and timelines to keep track of all the changes. But each change brings another question: Would a suburb in Massachusetts have a Brother’s Pizza and Sheetz? Is it likely that upper middle class kids in New England would have the first day of Buck season off of school; or that they would hang out at the local mini-mart on Main Street, go to splash hops in the summer, or skate on the iced-over tennis courts in the winter? Would New Yorkers say “fix-in to” and “sea-ment”? And, New Yorkers are certainly too smart to call every type of drink a Coke (even if it’s Pepsi, Sprite, Iced Tea, or bottled water). What a mess!
So after all the changes are made, I have an unauthentic, confusing piece of fiction that doesn’t resemble anything that I intended write in the first place. Screw that. I will use “your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow….”
