In the past 12 months I have moved into the genre of memoir largely due to the monthly picks from my book club. This is a category I normally would not seek out yet I am so glad that these books found their way into my life.
The feature photo for this blog post had been on my “to read” list for a very long time. Although the majority of the members of my book club did not enjoy Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle, I found myself incredibly intrigued by her story as parts of it felt surreal. Unconventional is not even an appropriate word to describe Walls’ up-bringing and the fact that she overcame such incredible obstacles and wrote the tale, is remarkable. Children truly need rules, boundaries and security. Yet Walls and her siblings (most of them) managed to grow up “normal” contrary to what the Western world views as a normal childhood and suitable parenting. I often thought as I read through her memoir that this book would be an excellent read for the sociology class I used to teach.
Further our book club dove into the very Canadian memoir of Farley Mowat’s last book titled Otherwise. Here Mowat tells the tale of his early childhood through to the mid-1940s after his experience in WWII. Wow did this man ever lead of life of adventure! Although my Canadian childhood was not as exciting as Mowat’s I could relate to his treks into the wilderness and encounters with insects, snakes and other forest critters as I has the privilege of spending my summers in Long Point, Ontario. I liked Mowat’s memoir because of not only the adventures that he wrote about but also his true passion to seek justice for isolated indigenous peoples and how he contributed so much to science. His writing is vivid and he writes this memoir with such clarity and purpose that I could see the other characters and animals as each adventure was told.
During a trek to Hamilton’s Public Library (hpl.ca) I found an intriguing title: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. Not your typical memoir Doughty discussed working in a crematorium in her twenties. This memoir was fascinating in both how much I learned about this field, but also how funny it was. Death is not a subject that is usually associated with humour but Doughty managed to make the anecdotes quite hilarious at times. I liked this memoir because I learned about a subject that I was very unfamiliar with without feeling the discomfort that the subject of death usually creates in people. It was truly a fascinating read.
The fourth memoir that found its way into my hands was Lindy West’s Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman. I really liked this book. It was empowering, relatable and very truth driven. West is a woman who does not mince her words but most definitely gives a voice to topics of feminism, fat-shaming, internet harassment, rape and equality to name a few. This memoir may not appeal to everyone but I thought it was a worthwhile read as she tackled many taboo and controversial subjects (which as an aside is ridiculous that some of those topics are still taboo in the 21st Century!) I am looking forward to what West publishes next.
The last memoir that I read I finished at the end of June. I was a hard read but such a necessary book in our culture that is slowly eroding. Roxane Gay is an author I have come to respect and admire. Thank you to bookriot.com for featuring her writing across my Facebook feed. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body was an ultimate memoir for me. I could relate to much of what Gay shares in this raw memoir. Her story breaks my heart yet at the same time I can relate to hiding in the fat — when you are fat no one notices you (ironically) or bothers you sexually. Her story is about safety and her own recognition of self-destruction. She writes with honesty opening herself up to tell a story that needed to be told. I feel like her book came at exactly the right time. It is hard to understand what it means to be fat unless you lived or are living that life and to see it through Gay’s lens is eye-opening. I would urge people to read this memoir to take a look through that lens, if only to empathize with a fraction of what Gay faces each day.
So there you have it. Five compelling and uniquely different memoirs that have come my way in the past 12 months. It is a genre worth discovering because you never know the impact a person’s story can have on your own life.
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