Memoir

Leave in bad breath, adult acne, ulcerative colitis. Leave out the hours you spend on the couch watching just one more episode. Confess to the affair and the drugs, but don’t mention the murder. Never mention the murder, even though you think a court would call it manslaughter. Confess you cheated in school, but leave out the cancer scare in your midthirties that left you weeping in the rocking chair as you nursed your five-month-old to sleep. Everyone has that kind of story. Consider writing about the cancer that baby would get when she was eight. No, save that for its own book later on. But don’t wait too long. Once she’s a teenager, she won’t want you writing about her cancer. Leave out tasting moose heart for the first time and spitting it on your plate. Leave in the inflated ptarmigan stomach. Leave out the fireflies, or leave them in. Leave out the ripped underpants, the banana peels, your mother lighting cigarettes on the stove. Wait, leave that in, but leave out the after-school cookies. Leave in the wine. Leave in the crash, the glass in your chin. Leave in that time you got caught deliberately losing at strip poker in middle school. That’s the good kind of shame. Every reader wants a little cringe without much terror. Leave out college. Nobody wants to read that these days.