After years of effort in the author trade, I discover an ideal topic, an inexhaustible subject of discourse, a literary inspiration—me. I’ll write a memoir. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this ages ago. It will be liberating to sit down at the typewriter and just be myself, as opposed to being, say, Anne Rice, which I don’t have the clothes for.
Even though my memoir is still in the idea stage, I’m full of enthusiasm. I’ll give the secret of my success—the success I plan to have as a memoir writer. As far as I can tell, the secret is thinking about myself all the time. No doubt my memoir will be inspirational, inspiring others to think about themselves all the time. They’ll see the meaning in their lives—they’ve been meaning to write a memoir, too.
So what if it’s a crowded field? My memoir will stand out. It will show readers a side of life they little guessed at, the side with the writer sitting in his boxer shorts surrounded by six empty coffee cups and three full ashtrays playing Go Fish with the dog.
Maybe readers had guessed at that. But I’m going to recount my personal struggles, such as having to come up with things to write about all the time. I’ve spent decades looking for stories that would interest other people. I’ve surmounted enormous obstacles—thinking about other people, just for instance.
But enough about them. This isn’t going to be a mere self-help book. This is the story of how one young man grew up to be … a lot older. That is probably the most serious issue I need to work through in my memoir. The issue being that I haven’t really done much. But I don’t feel this should stand in my way. O. J. Simpson wrote a memoir, and the jury said he didn’t do anything at all.
There’s also a lot of anger I need to deal with. I’m angry at my parents. For memoir purposes, they weren’t nearly poor enough. They weren’t rich either. And they failed miserably at leading colorful lives. My mother did belong to Kappa Kappa Gamma, which is a secret society, I guess. And my father was a veteran of the Pacific war, but the only casualty in his battalion was one fellow crushed by a palm tree. Furthermore, we lived in Toledo, Ohio. I suppose I could write a comic memoir. But in today’s society there are some things you just don’t make fun of, and chief among these is yourself.
My parents also neglected to abuse me. They’re gone now, alas. (Downside: no publicity-building estrangement when memoir is published, to be followed by tearful reconciliation on Oprah. Upside: I’m an Adult Child of the Deceased.) I’ve thought about asking my wife’s parents to abuse me, but it seems too little, too late. I did have a stepfather who drank.
Perhaps I’ll keep the section on my childhood brief, just emphasize that I’m a survivor. That’s what’s unique about me, and there are six billion people in the world who know how unique I feel. This should guarantee excellent sales. And—here comes that literary inspiration again—memoirs do sell. Readers want to know what real people really did and really felt. What a shame that the writing geniuses of the nineteenth century wasted their time making things up. We could have had Jane Austen Reality Prose: Got up. Wrote. Went out. Came back. Wrote some more. Vicarage still drafty.
Modern book buyers have become too sophisticated for imaginary romance and drama. They want facts: Roswell, New Mexico; the missile that shot down TWA flight 800; the Republican majority in the Florida popular vote. Unfortunately, I don’t have many facts like that, but I do have some terrific celebrity gossip. I’ve read all their memoirs.
I also know about some awful things my friends have done. I’ve noticed, while memoir reading, that one of the main points of the genre is ratting on your pals. I was going to gather that material together and commit it to paper. Then I realized that other memoir writers, as a class, seem to have very few friends who weigh 200 pounds and own shotguns.
Probably confession is a safer route. I’ve done all kinds of loathsome deeds myself and am perfectly willing to admit them, if it sells books. But thumbing through my memoir collection, I noticed another thing. Good memoir writers only confess to certain of the more glamorous sins—drastic sexual escapades, head-to-toe drug abuse, bold felonies after the statutes of limitation have run out. Nobody confesses to things that just make him look like a jerk-o. Nobody admits he got up at 4 a.m. with a throbbing head after five hours of listening to the kid’s pet squeaking in the exercise wheel and drowned the gerbil in the toilet. Most of my transgressions fall into this category and will need to be excised. I don’t want to get caught writing one of those “unauthorized autobiographies.”
This brings me to the other little problem I’m having with the story of my life, which is remembering it. There were the 1960s. I recall they started out well. Then there were the 1970s. I recall they ended badly. In between, frankly, I am missing a few candles on the cake. Also there were the 1950s, when nothing memorable happened, and the 1980s, when everything memorable was happening to somebody else. And the 1990s went by in a blur. But, no worries, I’ve been keeping a diary: Got up. Wrote. Went out. Came back. Wrote some more. Drowned the gerbil.
Maybe I can make up for my lack of reminiscences by inserting various vivid fantasies I’ve had. But this is cheating on the memoir form, since I’m admitting that those things—the New York Review of Books swimsuit issue, for example—never happened.
Or perhaps I should go back to all those challenges I’ve faced. I’ve had to endure enormous prejudice. True, since I’m a middle-aged white male Republican, the enormous prejudice came from me. But I still had to endure it. This is one reason that learning to love myself was another huge challenge. But I’ve overcome that too. Although, now that I’m completely self-infatuated, I keep waiting for me to give myself a raise. It’s been a bitter disappointment.
Thank goodness. Bitter disappointments are crucial to memoirs. Thinking of something to write in this memoir has been a bitter disappointment so far. That means I can write about not being able to write. Should be good for a chapter, if I can make it sound bitter enough.
Wait. I’m forgetting spiritual transformation. I’ve been touched by an angel—and a big one, too, all covered in glitter. It got me right in the forehead three months ago, when the dog knocked over the Christmas tree.
And I have a good title: My Excuse for Living. That should count for something.
Anyway, I’m not daunted. The memoir is the great literature of the current era. All that we ask of art, the memoir provides. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and if we can get a beauty to tell the truth, then Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss is all ye need to know. Art justifies God’s ways to man like The Art of the Comeback does. God is going to fry Donald Trump in hell, and He is perfectly justified. As with all art, the memoir holds a mirror up to life, and if there are some lines of cocaine on that mirror, so much the better. Out of chaos the memoir brings order—a huge order from a major bookstore chain, it is to be hoped. The memoir is nature’s handmaiden and also nature’s butt boy, bagman, and patsy if Behind the Oval Office by Dick Morris is anything to go by. The memoir exists on its own terms, art for art’s sake, if you happen to be named Arthur—vide Risk and Redemption: Surviving the Network News Wars by Arthur Kent. The memoir speaks to us; indeed, it won’t shut up. Vita brevis est, memoir longa.
And mine is going to be really long. I’ve got a major book happening here. After a whole ten minutes spent wrestling with my muse, I’ve made a vital creative breakthrough. I now know how to give my memoir the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic impact that the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Dostoyevsky had on previous generations. As with all insights of true originality, it’s very simple. It’s called lying.