Life’s too short to read fiction. That’s my opinion anyway.
Mentor/Author/Memoirist, Dr Lily Dunn wrote:
People often look at me strangely when I say I write memoir. But who are you? - they are probably thinking. Are you famous? What have you done that makes you so important? And really what they refer to is more aligned with autobiography, or the popular celebrity memoir, the type that makes it onto the shelves of WH Smith in a mainline railway station or airport. But the memoir I am interested in writing and reading involves unexceptional people asking often challenging questions about life and humanity.
Lily wrote about her dad leaving her when she was just 6 to join an Osho cult in Sins of my Father. There wasn’t a stone unturned in her uncovering how this affected every aspect of her life then and since. He died of alcoholism, estranged from everyone, alone. We follow her as she asks why:
Dunn recently published ‘Into Being’ a deep dive into ‘memoir’.
I couldn’t get enough of this book which featured Clover Stroud; Journalist and Sunday Times bestseller as one of her interview subjects. Stroud writes about ‘how life feels’ and I am a massive fan girl. The Wild Other, A Memoir of Love Adventure and how to be Brave (2018) remains one of my favourite reads.
So I already knew about Clover (first name terms as I SPOKE to her on a zoom call once.) Anyway what I am getting to is… that Lily introduced me to HUNDREDS more memoirists and I am devouring her recommended reading list at 2 per month.
I thought I’d start sharing reviews of the memoirs I’m reading. Memoirs usually focus on one aspect or limited time period in a writer’s life. ‘On Chapel Sands’ by Laura Cumming is a bit different. It stood out to me from Dunn’s list because its set around a beach in Lincolnshire 19 minutes from Mablethorpe where we enjoyed a Summer campout - more about that shit-show here.
Laura’s mum was kidnapped when she was three years old from Chapel Sands.
Laura has been the chief art critic of the Observer since 1999, once writing a book about self-portrait where one critic said… ’the text is so enthralling that the pictures almost seem like an interruption.’ basically she’s an amazing writer. Her forensic research into the kidnapping got her shortlisted for a 2019 COSTA biography award. She looked at black and white photographs from her mother’s bleak childhood and was able to tell us how long her grand-mother would have had to have stood in their small kitchen, how her grand-father would have had to close all other doors to use the natural light. How unusual it was to take pictures indoors on ‘Box Brownie’ cameras and how she still has her grandma’s recipe of the pie she was making in the portrait.
Laura’s mother had no recollection of the kidnapping and only one memory beforehand; “Jam”. Ask any child or adult what they remember from infancy and you’d be lucky to get ‘jam’ let alone a 120,000 word manuscript but Laura, through exploration of the family albums, interviewing basically a whole village and their decendents finds out exactly what happened to her mother. This ‘memoir’ is a gripping ‘mystery’ and I cried at the final page.
I read memoir for enjoyment and research. I want to be a better memoir writer. I want to write better sentences, convey deeper feeling. I want my writing to stay with you the way lines from memoirs stay with me.
My second book will be out this year. I start it with this quote from Clover Stroud:
‘Waiting for a pregnancy to draw to its huge, terrifying conclusion is like standing on the edge of a wilderness, with all your belongings and all your longings strapped into a backpack, wondering who you might have become when you have crossed through this new land and returned home.’ My Wild and Sleepless Nights, A Mother’s Story.
Please watch this space for news on my book launch!
I’ve been striking through some entries on my ‘to do list for my 40th year’. Including booking an exhibitor stand at Newark’s 10th Book Festival! Come and see my vintage inspired table there in July. I’ll have my first book Travelling Light and Dark and my second: title TBC!! But it’s about Sound healing, Motherhood and Mental Illness.
Thanks for reading… and look out for my review of Sea Scape soon which is about a 33 year old writer who wants to write a book about oil rigs but instead has an affair with a married man who works on the oil rigs. It’s made me feel grimy but I can’t put it down.
