Anyone got a super-brave memoir/memoirist to recommend for my Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me series on The Rumpus? Like seriously ballsy. Thanks in avance.
My conversation with Jon-Jon Goulian, author of The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt, is up on The Rumpus now. I was pleasantly surprised by this book - and by Jon-Jon. The pre-release hype turned me off. But just about as soon as I opened the book, I was sold.
The book is framed as a reply to a postcard Goulian sent, as a young boy, to his grown-up self basically asking, “What’s up? What became of you?” A postal carrier in the small Vermont town where Goulian’s family has a weekend home dutifully delivered the letter 30 years later, as instructed.
I loved everything about this memoir. Goulian holds nothing back; in his willingness to reveal himself as vain, shallow, neurotic and insecure, he emerges as a sympathetic, lovable soul. And the incredibly compassionate way he tells hard truths about his parents and grandparents - I need to learn how to do that.
“Memoir is actually the most egoless genre, even though it might seem ostensibly so much ego-driven. In order for it to succeed, you have to dissolve the self into these larger universal truths, and explore these deeper mysteries. If it’s purely autobiographical and ego-driven, it’s going to fail.” - The very egoless and brave Nick Flynn
My conversation with him is up now on The Rumpus.
Also…are there any memoirists you would like to see me interview for my Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me series on The Rumpus? They have to be unapologetically “divulge-y.”
I am a little bit self-conscious about the fact that, in the intro to my conversation with Some Girls: My Life in a Harem author Jillian Lauren on The Rumpus, I admit to once having briefly contemplated baring my boobs for money.
That said, if you would like to see my boobs, please consider purchasing a copy of The Rumpus Women Literary Calendar. For just $25 cheap, you’ll be helping keep this awesome online lit mag afloat, and you’ll get to see Antonia Crane, Sugar, Kathleen Alcott, Hannah Miet, Melissa Tan, Julie Greicius, Rebekah Otto, Anisse Gross, Lorelei Lee, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Chelsea Summers, Michelle Orange and Maddie Oatman interpreting their favorite authors, books, scenes or other literary references.
Oh - and me. I’m in there, too. Half-naked.
My conversation with Half A Life author Darin Strauss is up now on The Rumpus.
This conversation was very different from the others I’ve had. Strauss’s subject matter is much more grave. When he was eighteen, a girl swerved her bike in front of his car and died. Strauss was determined not to be at fault for the girl’s death. Still, she’s been haunting him his whole life.
This time I found I was reluctant to interject too much of my usual neurotic questioning, or my own instances of agonizing over people minding being written about. My experiences seem utterly trivial compared to Strauss’s.
I will have you know I didn’t cry this time - even though apparently two of Strauss’s other recent interviewers have.
The other point of this is to let you know my conversation with Emily Gould is now up on The Rumpus.
