Memory Matters—But to Whom?
Photo of Unlucky-Economist347’s grandmother and mother in the Belgian Congo in the 1950s. (photo from Reddit)
By Allison K Williams
As an editor who coaches writers to publication, I’m often asked:
I have my [parents’/grandparents’] [love letters/diaries/journals/taped interviews] and [photos/memorabilia/public documents] about them. What can I do with this material?
The quick, crass answer: Nobody cares. Put them in a shoebox and remember to label them so your kids know who the heck those people are when they clear out your belongings. But that’s my most-jaded perspective. I’ve already realized that my own mother’s years of genealogy research, generations of family photo albums, and good china will never find a home with my brother and me.
And yet, as writers, it’s sacrilege to discard the evidence, to dismiss the care and attention our foremothers spent to record their daily existence, special events, and the love that literally brought about our existence. How can we meaningfully honor that effort without wasting our time on a project few others will read?
Plenty of bestselling memoirs dive deep into family history: Tara Westover’s Educated, Dani Shapiro’s Inheritance, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes . What made them work? Educated and Inheritance both tied in to current culture, with Westover writing about her survivalist family just as popular media turned its eyes to preppers; Inheritance dives into the discoveries many people made as DNA testing became widespread. All are well-written, with Angela’s Ashes perhaps gaining the most critical respect. As “misery memoirs” go, McCourt’s sly humor and lyrical voice “rounded the edges of a brutal tale and made it so compelling that you actually enjoyed reading about what he’d lived through,” wrote Suzanne Donohue at Off The Shelf.
Three things make family histories work as books: compelling story, brilliant prose, and cultural connection. You don’t need all three, but without at least two, you’re unlikely to find a wider audience.
Compelling story. In Educated, readers get insight into survivalism, hard-right religion, and the personal drive it takes to not only escape, but to recognize something’s wrong in the first place. Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died tells us right from the title: this isn’t a story you’ve already heard, and the author won’t be pulling any punches. When you share your story with people outside your family, do they ask questions beyond polite interest? Did you make counterintuitive choices, or have a remarkable experience?
This applies even more to “My mom/great-aunt/elderly neighbor has a unique personal story that I want to write.” What makes memoir compelling is that it happened to the writer. It’s rare for a non-famous person’s biography to be compelling. Consider fictionalizing their plot, and be supported by your powers of invention rather than held back by facts.
Brilliant prose. With all due respect to your relatives, it’s unlikely they were awe-inspiring writers; their actual documents may not be the most powerful prose you can muster. Consider instead how their story lives on through your own, perhaps interspersing very short moments from your archive to illuminate your story in the present. The more you polish your craft, the better understanding you’ll have of when a bon mot from Grandpa adds to your own journey.
Cultural connection. Too often, letters and stories from the past, while meaningful to the participants, no longer hold a mirror up to life as we know it. Does anything in your documents bear on a political movement or significant events? What’s going on in the world right now, that your past family embodies? Why do outsiders need to know? If you’re working with Grandma’s letters, is there something to be said about communicating on paper vs electronically? Did your parents have a unique relationship that might speak to modern couples? Consider testing one of those concepts as an essay, to see how it resonates with readers.
Of these three attributes, cultural connection is the simplest to manifest. Author Clorisa Phillips wrote about the meaning of her mother’s gift, a charm bracelet and years of commemorative charms. She tied her story to the current boom in charm bracelet sales by the jewelry giant Pandora, and the essay was published in The Ethel . Now, writing family history, Phillips is expanding her frame of reference so that her ancestors’ stories are specific examples of historic growth and change in their region. She’s uncovering how their habits, food, and anecdotes reflect a common history, and how that history is relevant to modern political concerns.
You need not write for mass consumption to create a book for a specific audience. Family history/letters can be a beautiful gift to your descendants, so if you’re facing a pile of ephemera that feels valuable to you, don’t waste time convincing literary agents. Consider having the letters transcribed or professionally scanned and creating a book that looks great; then print 50 copies and distribute them as family keepsakes, perhaps donating a couple of copies to a regional library or museum. This could even be a wonderful joint project between you and the generation above or below, bonding over the writing and design process.
The publish-ability of your family history does not determine its intrinsic value. Not everything worthwhile is salable. Not everything salable is worthwhile. To honor the efforts and records of your lineage, start sharing now. Host a family-stories party for your own descendants, or fellow members of your generation. Gather over a Jello salad with mayonnaise and ham to swap funny-grandma tales. Whisper past family triumphs into the ears of your pajama-clad progeny. As a woman said recently, “My grandchildren aren’t connected to my own grandmother at all. If I want them to treasure her jewelry, I’d better start wearing it.”
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Allison K Williams is Brevity ‘s Social Media Editor and the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book.
Writing a memoir of any kind? Sell it with a proposal, which also serves as your marketing map. Join Allison for Proposal Bootcamp April 12-14, live on Zoom , and write most or all of your proposal with templates, class time and professional guidance. Find out more/register now.
