Writing a memoir and hating my narrator

How Brené Brown and Vivian Gornick helped me understand the story I'm telling myself.

Amid Life is a weekly newsletter about reinvention. Occasionally, I share notes about books that have inspired me or essays on the craft of writing. This is one of those.

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I raced around the house, taking photos of my favorite books—classic fiction and poetry in the bedroom, non-fiction and memoirs upstairs in my office. Children's books down the hall. I wanted images of book covers at the ready in my camera roll.

I'd recently joined Bluesky, the smaller, gentler version of X/Twitter, and stumbled upon the Book Challenge. Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

That was easy. No explanation. No review. Just Covers.

It seemed like a great way to introduce myself on a new platform. Until four books in, when I saw this post from someone I admire.

"Help me understand: posting books that influenced/changed/enlightened you "no explanation just covers"…why bother? I can look at book cover pics on Amazon. I'd rather hear a person's experience of a book or why it matters."

Haruumpth. She's my role model of work ethic, audience engagement, and editing. Now, this red-headed writing guru and ardent supporter of emerging writers had poo-poohed my easy-button approach.

I'm a book buyer. Spine-cracker. Dog-earing annotator. Far more than 20 books¹ fit the book-challenge bill, and I could explain how and why Lily Barton, Jane Eyre, Rose-of-Sharon, May Sarton, Tillie Olsen, and Rebecca Quimby jumped off the page and into my bone marrow, but I didn't want to.

Figure me out for yourself. You're not getting my self-analysis or deep emotional work. Enjoy this pretty picture. I'm keeping my inner thoughts and feelings to myself; thank you very much.

And that attitude, dear reader, is a big problem for wanna-be memoir writers like me.

The story I told myself

Books played a big part in the early months of my midlife reinvention. Therapists, entrepreneurs, and billionaire philanthropists whispered their secrets to happiness, success, and purpose. Memoirists shared painful stories that carried me to dark places pierced with hopeful light.

It was the authentic storytelling combined with actionable, research-based insights that really messed with my head, though. I'm talking to you, Brené Brown.

While walking the dog, I listened to the popular researcher, speaker, and author read her best-selling books, The Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly. I'd tug Rangeley's leash to a stop so I could audio-bookmark phrases that resonated. We stopped so often that he ran out of sniffs.

Dr. Brown suggested this phrase: "The story I tell myself," as a device to help individuals get curious about their feelings and take ownership of their actions. A few weeks of glee after I left my corporate job were quickly followed by anxiety and doubt. One of the stories I told myself was, 'You need to do more, work harder, find your damn purpose already and make something happen. You're becoming like the cows in the meadow swishing flies with their tails. Everyone is going to think you've gone out to pasture."

Who am I without my job? Had I not tried hard enough to succeed, or had I simply failed? Was I insane to voluntarily toss out status and security to chase a silly dream?

Shame is the fear of disconnection.… it's the fear that we've done something or failed to do something. We haven't lived up to an ideal, or we haven't accomplished a goal that makes us worthy of connection.

—Brené Brown

Brown had a lot to say about shame. During my "self-help summer," I soaked up every syllable. I nearly drowned.

That situation is not my story

I used to think my career reinvention was the story. The various shitty first drafts of my memoir were tortured chronologies of every job, every missed opportunity, every bridge crossed or burned. Shame, shame, shame.

When I started a creative writing MFA program, I discovered Vivian Gornick's book on personal narrative, The Situation and the Story.

The situation is essentially the plot and the circumstances surrounding it. The story is the emotional journey revealing what the narrator (aka the writer) has "come to say." The narrator exists in the situation—say, a midlife woman abandons her corporate career and struggles to begin a new chapter.

The story is the narrator's quest. She must ask the right questions, recall memories, and reflect on her feelings and actions in those moments. For the story to move and build tension and for the reader to care, the narrator must be curious, fearless, and vulnerable.

In the drafts of the story I was telling about myself, the woman who left her job (aka, the narrator) was a hot-headed sad sack, an unworthy and unambitious coward—a victim of her sex, her age, and the patriarchy.

To tell an authentic story, I needed to find a narrator "strong enough to do battle for me," as Gornick had done in her eminent memoir Fierce Attachments.

My narrator was raining all over my tale of resilience and rebellion with her poor-me lamentations. With every pathetic interior monologue, I was like wait, what? Ew. I don't like this woman. Who is she?

"When writers remain ignorant of who they are at the moment of writing," Gornick wrote, "the work, more often than not, will prove either false or severely limited."

I'd been rushing past emotion and interiority because I couldn't bear to hear the tiny violin play on and on. I'd been telling a diluted, unfamiliar story about myself and needed to find out why.

"The piece builds only when the narrator is involved not in confession but in this kind of self-investigation, the kind that means to provide motion, purpose, and dramatic tension." —Vivian Gornick

Connecting Brown's work with Gornick's advice on craft was a turning point. I lifted my narrator out of her perimenopausal malaise and placed her on the other side of the "rumbling" (Brown's word). I've reckoned with my career choices, my ego upheavals, and my difficult mental and physical menopause transition. Now that my narrator understands that there is no shame in any of that, she can tell a more authentic story.

My narrator's distanced and reflective point of view can move my story forward with greater insight and empathy. The story she tells about my experiences will still be about emotional upheaval, but there will also be plenty of courage and resilience.

The wall behind my desk needs repair and repainting, but that will have to wait. Running eight feet along the low ceiling, pink PostIt notes outline pivotal scenes for the next draft of my book. It's the situation in 15 beats²—beginning, middle, and end—but it's not the story.

It will take a few more drafts to reconcile my experience and why it matters (to my narrator and to my readers). I've taken that writing guru's point. You can't judge a book by its cover.

Work hard. Be brave. Believe.

Catherine

1. I posted nine books before giving up. This tracks – nine is the average number of days I can maintain a diet or a daily workout. Nine days is my sober October average.

2. I’m experimenting with Save the Cat.