I have often whined about not liking memoirs--but I continue to read them and even like some. Since I've read four memoirs in the first month of 2024, I thought I'd ruminate on what makes a memoir good or bad from my perspective.
The Good
In The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, Andrew Leland does not confine himself to looking inward, as so many memoirists do. He does certainly examine the impact of his vision loss due to retinitis pigmentosa on how he lives his life, interacts with people, and thinks about his identity--and he does so in a thoughtful manner. But he also looks outward to the experiences of other visually impaired people, as well as to assistive technologies and medical treatments that have been developed or are being tested. There's much to be learned as well as much to think about. In the former category, among other things, I learned a lot about the use and learning of Braille and about the development of assistive technologies by blind people themselves, who often have not gotten the credit for their inventions, which have gone on to find wide applicability among the sighted population as well. In the latter category: Is blindness defining when it comes to identity or simply incidental? How is it that the male gaze continues to be relevant when we are talking about blind men? What can we learn about intersectionality and discrimination in its many forms by considering the varied thinking of blind people who are also black, female, and/or LGBTQ? Well worth reading.
I never intended to read Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes. The subtitle in particular sounded like a gimmicky quasi self-help book by a celebrity. But then it was available on Libby and I needed something to listen to while taking my daily walk and I actually liked it a lot. Rhimes was a highly successful TV creator and single mom when her sister shocked her by complaining that she never said yes to anything. She realized her sister was right and decided to say "yes" to every intimidating, scary offer that came her way, from giving a commencement speech at her alma mater to going on Jimmy Kimmel. As she took on these challenges, she also recognized she needed to expand her thinking about saying yes to include saying yes to her family, to herself, and to saying no not out of fear but out of conviction. It gave me a lot to think about, which for me is what makes a memoir worthwhile. Plus, Rhimes is funny!
The Not-So-Good
Reinforcing the idea that subtitles can be important: While a subtitle pushed me away from Year of Yes until I was desperate for a book, the subtitle of The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser intrigued me. Based on my understanding of the essay form, I thought a memoir in essays would surely offer interesting insights. Um, no. First of all, the book starts with a long section of anecdotes about the love stories of Hauser's progenitors, no resemblance to what I expect from an essay. This is followed by a series of what I guess are essays; I did enjoy pieces about Hauser's responses to The Philadelphia Story, The Fantasticks, and The X-Files, even though I wearied of everything being run through a lens of Hauser's love life. Did she have nothing else in her life but failed relationships? Then, near the end of the book, she concludes a piece by saying "If you are waiting for me to tell you how the story of my going to the fertility clinic comes together with the story of the man who drove me through the park in lilac season with the story of whether or not I want to keep my teats, you are missing the point." And she goes on to blame any reader dissatisfaction with her approach on the reader's misapprehension of "what has to happen in a story." I go on to conclude there really just isn't a point.
I received John Stamos's memoir If You Would Have Told Me as a Christmas gift; I wouldn't have picked it up on my own, but I did read it and don't regret it too much, as it's a quick read. It actually starts with a nice anecdote about driving in LA drunk, with people in other cars yelling "Uncle Jessie, pull over." When I recounted this story to my son and DIL, they both thought it sounded highly unlikely. And, sadly, Stamos didn't provide any real insight into addiction and recovery. Mostly, he talked about famous people (especially the Beach Boys) he knew--and he threw his ex-wife under the bus. There's nothing to ponder or take away. It's one of those memoirs that makes the reader ask, "Why did you think this was worth writing?"
Favorite Passages
I found that the experience of blindness encompasses both tragedy and beauty, the apocalyptic and the commonplace, terror and calm. This is true of most of human experience: the same can be said of the process of aging, or of dying. In the end, I found that the separation between the blind and the sighted worlds is largely superficial, constructed by stigma and misunderstanding rather than any inherent differences. If we could remove the misperceptions people have about blindness--the image of it as a place of fear, claustrophobia, infantilization, and fundamental otherness--the landscape would begin to look very different. The two worlds would cease to feel so distinct, and their overlapping zones would grow. Ultimately, they'd have to yield and concede and share territory. The blind belong to our world, and we belong to theirs. It's the same world.
--Andrew Leland, The Country of the Blind
When you negate someone's compliment, you are telling them they are wrong. You're telling them they wasted their time. You are questioning their taste and judgment. You are insulting them. If someone wants to compliment you, let them.
--Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes
