Memoir #2

I want to give credit where due and I think the following theme list came from writer Jack Remick of Seattle. Or the list could have come from Michele Weldon. 

Common themes for the memoir:

Abusive relationships

Incest

Dysfunctional families

Living in Poverty (The Glass Castle)

From Poverty to Riches

And the reverse (How Starbucks Saved my Life)

Tell Alls – juicy secrets mostly from celebs

Courage – war stories

Pets – My Life with Snooky – I made up this title but not all memoirs are high                         drama. Some are about the wonder and love of a devoted pet.

            And there are Happy Family memories – 700 Sundays by Billy Crystal

 What I liked about Crystal's book was that it was about family - his love of his father and the 700 Sundays they had together before the father died when Billy was 15. I'm not much interested in reading about celebrities and how they found fame. Families, I care about.

 Reading memoirs

I decided, after collecting odds and ends, quotes and first chapters to include in my power point, that I ought to spend a little time reading memoirs. So I went to my local library, and I must confess, looked for the shortest ones on the shelf. I was going for quantity, not necessarily quality. My reading list:

Year of Learning Dangerously – Quinn Cummings

An Innocent, A Broad – Ann Leary

The Dali Lama’s Mother – didn’t read, not well enough written

The World’s Strongest Librarian

My Father’s House – Sylvia Fraser

Hoda – Hoda Kotb

Boy – Roald Dahl

700 Sundays – Billy Crystal

How Angel Peterson Got His Name – Gary Paulson

Blackbird – Jennifer Lauck

Driving With Dead People – Monica Holloway

Homesick: My Own Story - Jean Fritz

Lean In – Sheryl Sandberg – not a memoir but I throw it in anyway

Red Midnight – Ben Mikaelsen – fiction that reads like memoir

All-in – Pete Hautman (fiction that reads like memoir)

How Starbucks Saved My Life – Michael Gates Gill

            Interestingly, the first two on the list were my favorites. Not because of subject matter, but because I loved the writing style, the bits of humor and learning something I had no way of knowing I wanted to learn.

            I had another week to go, but suddenly I was done, burned out. No more reading of memoirs. Not forever, but for now.