Gasoline Books Newsletter #5
It's all about me(moirs)
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about self-involvement. Maybe it’s all the Housewives reunions and Scandoval drama that’s been seeping into my neurons, but dang, are we one self-entitled society or what? Yes, there are some good eggs out there. But do those stories capture our attention more than a reality TV star scorned? Maybe, if it was on TikTok, but probably not. (Team Ariana, FWIW).
But then in the meandering way my brain likes to chew on things, I somehow landed at the feet of memoir, ruminating on all this. Where, in my opinion, the line of self-involvement and awareness is more blurry than a watercolor hanging in the MoMA. Is a little bit of conceitedness bad for business in the world of the written word? Or is it a requirement, an occupational hazard of sorts? Does being a tiny bit self-involved help or hurt a piece of work? And, without the occasionally neurotic self-awareness, would a memoir flop?
Nowhere else in literature can a reader thoroughly enjoy the unkempt savagery of personal essays with the equal heart-wrenching relatability of memoir. This isn’t to say that fiction and poetry can’t pull at the good ol’ heartstrings, but it’s not the same as learning about something lived — at least to me.
I arrived late to the genre, and I have a lot of catching up to do. But, in this increasingly lonesome world, sometimes reading a personal essay beautifully written by a stranger can distill your own experiences in a way that venting to your mother just can’t accomplish. Speaking of my mother, my 76-year-old Southern slip of a woman just finished the collection of personal essays, “These Precious Days,” by Ann Patchett. My mother does not like memoirs nor is she a huge fan of essays, but she admires Ann, and will give just about any book a chance, as long as it’s not horror or something blindingly sad. She doesn’t do well with messes.
On a recent Sunday afternoon catch-up call, I folded laundry and listened to my mother expound on Patchett’s skill and sincerity in the book. “She just got so…PERSONAL,” my mother exclaimed, scandalized and mesmerized in balanced measure. If this was another era, she’d be clutching her pearls in one hand and the phone with the other. My mother will only get personal with friends and family to a degree. Maybe it’s the Southerness in her, or the Baby Boomer in her, or maybe it’s some other buried childhood trauma, but the woman does not want to be a bother. Memoir is brimming with bother. It’s bother, bound. And my mother liked it. Like, a lot. Which speaks to how captivating the genre can be, even to the most unlikely of audiences.
No matter if they’re essays or lengthier tropes, successful memoirs sit you down and lean over across from you, as if they’re sipping a mint julep and spilling the juiciness all over the good table cloth. Bothered, aware, and just maybe, a little involved. This and more below.
Book of the Month
“Writers & Lovers” by Lily King isn’t a memoir, but it sure reads like one. I’m late to the game on this one, I know. But listen, this girl’s got a lot to read and tons of trash TV to binge. “Writers & Lovers” shakes that exquisite cocktail that I, a writer, quench for: A book about writing, while also covering life spent, well, not writing.
In the writer’s life, there are two parallel universes existing at any given moment: the work and everything else. King hitches her cart to Writer Life Express and is generous enough to welcome us aboard. We meet the protagonist, Casey, shortly after the unexpected passing of her mother. She is a floundering writer who works at a bougie restaurant not terribly far from Harvard and commonly waits on snotty bigwigs (I kid — I kid!) who teach there. At this point, most of her writing peers have succumbed to suburbia while she carries the torch for her unfinished manuscript. She’s alone, mostly. Though sometimes, she has the obscene indignity of waiting on someone whom she used to know when she was a promising young writer. Now, she’s grieving and stagnant. But she’s not giving up.
Working at the restaurant provides a freedom that, while encouraging creativity, does not exactly build a solid retirement fund. Casey lives in a former gardening shed, and tinkers with her novel, an homage to her mother. When she’s waiting tables, the low droning hum of the work-in-progress is ever in the background.
Full of feels, understandably, Casey does her fair share of bed hopping (that’s the “lovers” in the title). But it’s not salacious or unsavory (in the descriptions or motivation). The reader commiserates with Casey’s ache to find home within another person. Her work is no safe haven. It’s not going well. However as Casey sheds loser to flakey loser to arrogant asshole, the work becomes home. And it’s good. Like, really freaking good. It’s the kind of underdog story real writers who don’t have fancy degrees or awards to their names wish for every night before they fall asleep.
Read If: You’re two deep scrolls away from posting inspirational quotes about resilience on your IG Story after receiving yet another rejection letter.
Monthly Reading List
To keep things interesting, this list is composed of both personal essays and long-form memoirs. It’s incomplete, as usual. And yes, I know there are some holes here left by commonly recommended pieces. In an effort to spread the love, some of these may be familiar, while others — hopefully — are new.
“Also A Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me” - Ada Calhoun
“Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries 1971-1973” - Jim Carroll
“Crying in H Mart” - Michelle Zauner
“Running is a Kind of Dreaming” - J.M. Thompson
“Memoirs” - Tennessee Williams
“M Train” - Patti Smith
“Aftershocks” - Nadia Owusu
“Role Models” - John Waters
“We Are Never Meeting in Real Life” - Samantha Irby
“The Year of Magical Thinking” - Joan Didion
“Men We Reaped” - Jesmyn Ward
“This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage” - Ann Patchett
“Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir” - Natasha Trethewey