How to Behave When an Old Friend Puts You in Their Memoir.
I was going to write about my uncomfortable experience of sitting in the Bowery Poetry Club listening to my childhood friend recount a story of my first kiss and emergent adolescent sexuality to a room full of strangers from her memoir. But somehow this story gets even more peculiar.
Through a very strange twist of fate, I just found out that my mother in–law is now taking a writing class where my friend will be a guest teacher. My friend, Maureen, was asked to read the part about our childhood. Of all of the writing teachers in New York City, my mother in- law has this one? Of all of the people from his classes to come in to read he has my old friend…and he wants her to read a section about my first kiss? Is this man a total sadist or is this just a joke of some sick muse?
How did this begin? A few months ago I got a note on Face book from a man I shall call Writing Instructor,
He wrote:
Maureen is taking my writing class. She did not know how to contact you. I looked you up on FaceBook. Maureen is reading a section about you from her work at the Bowery Poetry Club, would you like to join us? The class is very excited to meet you.”
'Of course!' I replied, and I will bring my whole family. That was before I saw what she had written. It is absolutely wonderful being reconnected and I am very flattered that I am important enough for her to have written a whole chapter about our friendship. Maureen’s story was very accurate. It recalled me as a very sensual being. The chapter deals with the strain of our friendship as I became sexually aware (boy crazy) and left our shared, more intellectual, pursuits behind. It had contained our playful summers in Maine with my family, our horrible neighborhood in Staten Island, nasty fights with my father, danger from neighborhood bullies and my first kiss.
Nothing was spared, not my perky breasts in new training bras and the fact that I was constantly eating. She recounted how I would try to fake out her chess opponents by slowly eating Big Macs to distract them at tournaments. Sex and food were the big themes. My husband said it was “hot”. My attorney friend and pen pal advised me to have her change my real name before it went any further.
Maureen said that I was considered a "heroine" with her writing group. Her class certainly greeted me as if they knew me very well when I showed up for the reading. By the end of the reading, I wanted to sneak out of the place. We may be artists with fewer boundaries than most, but I think even I was tested with this experience.
In fact, through this experience, Maureen and I have come to an understanding; she has changed my name, is making some tweaks and will read another chapter from her book for my mother-in-law.
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Comments
You sound like you have handled it well and maintained your friendship in some form--good for you!
Amanda. I agree.
A friend of mine recently published a memoir, and I quickly flipped to the chapter that covered our college days. Yup, my (real) name was in there, but I only got one or two sentences.
Rated!
And since the truth is a part of you already, it's already known by anyone who looks.
Glad it turned out well for you!
I took her on no more prison visits. And also made sure never to say anything to her that I didn't want broadcast to the world.
Thing is - yes, it was a bit of *her life* - but it was also, and a bigger part of, other peoples' lives, and they weren't getting any say in how it was spoken of.
I would like to write a memoir. One of the more interesting parts would be about the prisons, since otherwise my life has been pretty blah. And there are a few other experiences and people I'd like to write about.
Unfortunately, I can't see how to disguise things sufficiently with the fiddling with a few details.
Especially since often it's the details that make the story.
But I am reminded of the sheer horror I felt when I realized my friend was blabbing - and it wasn't even my own personal stuff.
So, unless I am overcome in my urgent pre-death time with a spasm of to-hell-with-everyone, I guess I will be memoirless.
(Also, I can't imagine anyone I know writing a memoir or that if anyone did that I would feature in it... But one never knows, does one. Esp. in this blogging age, where anyone can write and disseminate anything...)
Grace- you picked up on something very interesting and I did not want to get into it...but I think the instructor became smitten with the 13 year old in the memoir and he wanted to meet me..apparently he was pretty forceful about contacting me. The person in the story was sexy and charismatic...seen from the perspective of a girl crush...
Harry: there were some inaccuracies in her piece and some artistic embellishments but she caught my essence, the good, the bad and the reckless.
Mark- I didn't mind if I had been anonymous.But it was too late... my real name was announced to the whole room full of people....by the instructor not my friend. It has been suggested that he may have been a little titillated. My name never sounded so loud.
ane - Thank you for writing that. I think it took me a while to process how I felt. It was a violation of my boundaries and yet I did not immediately see it.I am mad at the instructor for not educating her. It was not her fault...she is a first time writer. But what is also very weird is that my mother in law is now in his class. Perhaps fate has put us in each others paths for strange reason 1. to reconnect with my old friend 2. ????with mother -law?
Silk- again you are bringing up instructor...it is kind of stalkerish..and I hope my experience helps...
I just can't imagine why bringing in the "real" person would help writers in the class. And why he's looking up the links between your mother-in-law and you.
Let me tell you, there are teachers who should not be trusted with 13 year old girls. Even those who have grown up.
*Flings virtual rotten vegetables in direction of said instructor.*
Your friend sounds as though she may be a good writer (can't tell without reading her work, of course), and she does have good recall. I'm glad she agreed to anonymize you, and it sounds as though your friendship survived. Good on both of ya.
Oh hey, here are some more of those rotten vegetables...do you want to throw some too, or are you such a nice person that you don't do that sort of thing? ;)
Rated for eloquence, empathy, and story value.
Nolalibraian- Yes. There are all kinds of things on the sexuality spectrum...and I am trying to explore them in my blog...I think that my sadism (or voyeuristic) comment is not entirely a joke.
It is obvious your gf idealized you both in life and in print. I have been guilty of the same. I recently wrote a post about three of my closest friends and how I've become their de facto therapist. The guy friends let it roll off; my girlfriend? Deleted me from Facebook!
I don't like to censor my writing for anyone because I think it dilutes what you're trying to do.
Childhood friend already knew about changing names - can't have lived in this sue-happy world and not know the wisdom of such an act.
Second, she may have given the class/instructor the idea that you wouldn't have a problem with it, so to give the instructor benefit of the doubt perhaps he was making sure of that ;).
Finally, unfortunately, if it's truth it's fair game, as mentioned in the Capote comment. So unless one can prove damages of some sort, it would be difficult to prevent such tales from making it into print.
Rated for that scary thought.
Tomreeton- you are right on!I think that because the probability of getting published is slight,this did not phase me...I'm tough (I act tough). It is navel gazing and my husband and I joke all the time about it....I told him that I can do this or get a new navel to look at....either new lover or a tummy tuck.
The reality hit when the class mates started to greet me, I realized that these writing samples were going to their houses. The classmates had their respective families with them (who they introduced to me) professionals...in my universe...don't forget my whole family...was involved in this memoir...my father's high level executive job, his friends, location of his apt in city.... my HS.
Moreover, I was just letting it all go when I heard this week that the instructor was drooling over me to my mother-in-law...yuk...what a horrible situation...I already took her son away from her now her instructor?? None of this is good and it is all because of some ego /sociopathic trip on the part of the instructor glorifying himself and not considering the well being of the humanity around him.
My topics are fictionalizations of what goes on around me, and by necessity, include the people I interact with. In a sense, that differentiates my body of work from a memoir, but only slightly. There is a great deal of reality in what I write, with some artistic license. People from around my small community have read my work and have recognized some characters. In one piece, it's impossible not to know who I'm describing.
In the fiction pieces, the names are always changed, and some events are altered. I am not really aware of doing this as I write, but I'd certainly do that consciously at edit if I slipped real names in.
As others have stated, yes these are events that took place in MY life, but is that good enough? They are also events that took place in other people's lives; people who do not get up in the morning and vow to themselves that there are some people they can't talk to or their names will be in print at some point.
In writing about my life and how it interacts with others', I'm purging a few demons, but I'm bringing those other people into a situation that they have not agreed to. In the case of Capote, he was describing those who seek the glare of the spotlight. My friends shun it. I have to respect that.