Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803246927 ISBN 13: 9780803246928

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2013

Synopsis

Whenever a memoirist gives a reading, someone in the audience is sure to ask: How did your family react? Revisiting our pasts and exploring our experiences, we often reveal more of our nearest and dearest than they might prefer. This volume navigates the emotional and literary minefields that any writer of family stories or secrets must travel when depicting private lives for public consumption.

Essays by twenty-five memoirists, including Faith Adiele, Alison Bechdel, Jill Christman, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Rigoberto González, Robin Hemley, Dinty W. Moore, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Mimi Schwartz, explore the fraught territory of family history told from one perspective, which, from another angle in the family drama, might appear quite different indeed. In her introduction to this book, Joy Castro, herself a memoirist, explores the ethical dilemmas of writing about family and offers practical strategies for this tricky but necessary subject.

A sustained and eminently readable lesson in the craft of memoir, Family Trouble serves as a practical guide for writers to find their own version of the truth while still respecting family boundaries.

About this title

About the Author

Joy Castro is a professor of both English and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She is the author of several books including Island of Bones (winner of an International Latino Book Award in nonfiction), The Truth Book, and How Winter Began: Stories. 

Reviews

This collection of essays, edited by memoirist Castro (Island of Bones), shares the ruminations of 25 memoirists (including Robin Hemley, Dinty W. Moore, and Mimi Schwartz) on the troubles, strategies, and results of writing about family, and how to deal with the ensuing consequences for family relationships. Most of the contributors understand the lack of easy answers when writing about family, and simply share their experiences, successes, and failures. Though the collection contains the occasional we write because we must cliché, the book's standouts include Ariel Gore's The Part I Can't Tell You, in which she talks about the difficulty of choosing how to tell stories as she slowly releases information about her stepfather's death. Another highlight is Alison Bechdel's What the Little Old Ladies Feel, which succinctly and bluntly sums up the impossibility of baring a person's secrets without hurting them. Meanwhile, Richard Hoffman's Like Rain on Dust both acknowledges issues relating to writing and family while firmly arguing for the need for some stories to be told in public. The collection may hold the general reader's interest only as a curiosity, but for any writer of memoirs, it's a must-read. (Oct.)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803246927
• ISBN 13: 9780803246928
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Castro Joy