Currently Reading: Memoirs

My dream has always been to write fiction, and for years I was adamant about my refusal to read nonfiction for fun (picture: pretentious teenage Elizabeth claiming "Oh, I only read fiction.")  Obviously, this was really stupid, and over the past several months, creative nonfiction, personal essays and memoirs in particular, have been some of my favorite genres to both read and write.

I am 100% a product of the 21st century, so when my internet spontaneously stopped working a few nights ago, I panicked trying to figure out how I would entertain myself.  Obviously, I headed straight to the bookstore in search of something mindless and fun to read during these dark times, and came back with Diablo Cody's memoir, Candy Girl.  This book is fantastic, and inspired me to write about a few of my other favorite memoirs.

Candy Girl by Diablo Cody - I have been a fan of the famous stripper-turned-screenwriter ever since the release of Juno, so I knew her writing would be clever, unique, fast-paced, and very very funny.  This book chronicles the year Cody spent working as a stripper in Minneapolis, and in addition to the fascinating behind-the-scenes look at these establishments, as someone who grew up in Minneapolis, I was infinitely entertained by trying to count how many strip club names I recognized from driving past them on the way to my summer creative writing classes.  Not to mention her descriptions of Minnesota, such as, "Minnesota is like a church basement with a leaky popcorn ceiling and a bingo caller who's afraid to amp things up past a whisper" are spot-on.

On Writing by Stephen King - This book is half-memoir, half-how-to-write, and strikes a perfect balance between the two.  King gives an intimate insight into several personal details of his life, including his experiences writing for small publications as a teenager to his terrifying drug and alcohol addiction.  He counters this with step-by-step descriptions of the writing process and advice on everything from vocabulary to the publishing industry, while always maintaining a conversational tone that is easy to read, and never comes across as textbook.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - This fictionalized memoir is Dave Eggers' first book, and though Eggers writes both fiction and nonfiction with success in both genres, his memoir seems to receive the most praise.  At age 22, Eggers moved from Chicago to California following the deaths of his parents to raise his 8-year-old brother, and he recounts this time in his memoir through not only stories, but lists, fictionalized interviews, and charts.  It's sad, and funny, and creative, and takes crazy risks in its writing but succeeds immensely.  The personalized writing advice I received from Eggers at a signing when I told him I wanted to be a writer definitely only added to my love of this book.

Just Kids by Patti Smith - I read Patti Smith's memoir about living as a starving artist in New York in the late sixties and early seventies before really knowing anything about her music or career, and fell in love with it so much that I quickly developed an unhealthy obsession with her music and art.  (I even skipped my poetry night class one night to see her in concert, using my grocery money to buy the ticket, which is so Patti Smith in and of itself that I can't even handle it.)  This novel is beautifully written and illustrates perfectly and honestly what it means to be an artist.  I love this book because it allows those of us who have dreamed of the starving artist lifestyle to live vicariously through Patti Smith's.  I'm not exaggerating when I say is one of my all-time favorite books.

Read on,
Elizabeth

Currently Reading: Short Stories

It’s a little embarrassing that I’m told to write short stories in almost all of my fiction writing classes, yet I rarely read short stories that aren’t homework assignments.  With this in mind, I decided to pick up a few collections by authors I admired.  What surprised me most (but probably shouldn’t have surprised me at all) about reading these collections was how many trends and reoccurring themes I found in each author’s work.  Even though I might have at first thought, “Really?  You’re using that same trick again?” as I was reading, I ended up really appreciating how much I was able to learn about each writer’s distinct voice.  Anyway, I decided to share what I loved about each of these collections below.

Self-Help by Lorrie Moore – Lorrie Moore is able to get her readers deep inside the heads of her characters, oftentimes by writing in the second person, so that by the time I finish one of her stories and take a step back I’m surprised to realize that I would probably hate these characters in real life.  She writes about everyday people and events, but with enough details that their worlds always feel colorful and tragically deep.  I loved her novel Anagrams as well and will definitely try to read more of her work.  (I also really want to mention that there’s an episode of Gossip Girl where Blair tries to get Lorrie Moore invited to a party to impress the editor of a magazine, and as I was watching it I freaked out thinking Lorrie Moore might cameo.  She didn’t.)

Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel – I first heard about this book from my high school writing teacher who liked to talk about how much fun this book was to read in public due to its self-help-style cover, making it ironic that I read it back-to-back with Lorrie Moore’s collection.  Even though I avoided the comments of, “there, there, don’t jump,” he claimed strangers would make on the train, I loved reading the collection that included one of my all-time favorite short stories, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried.”  Even though I didn’t totally understand every story in this book, many of the stories contained such beautiful, thought-provoking passages that I often found myself going back a few pages just to re-read them.  There aren’t many characters in her stories, and hardly any dialogue, and I was immediately impressed that any author could pull off this much self-reflection without it feeling at all amateur.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell – Karen Russell’s novel Swamplandia! was one of those books I initially had mixed feelings toward, but haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I read it over a year ago, so when a friend told me that the novel was actually inspired by the short story, “Ava Wrestles the Alligator” that starts off this collection, I knew I had to read it.  She pulls off magical realism perfectly, writing stories that remain in the realm of reality but always feel just a little off.  Most of her stories contain adolescent main characters, but wouldn’t at all fall under the genre of YA, allowing adult readers the chance to reflect on the mysterious, fantastical, often twisted ways young people see the world.  Considering how much success Russell has already had at only 31 years old, I’m looking forward to the amazing work this writer is bound to produce in the future.

I think I’ll take a break from short story collections for a while, but I already know Tenth of December by George Saunders is next on my list.  For now, these collections have given me plenty of inspiration to continue working on some short stories of my own. 

Read on,
Elizabeth