For Frying Out Loud (11 page)

June 2008

IS IT REAL OR IS IT “MEMOIR?”

There's a fight going on in the publishing industry and I was briefly part of the dust-up.

Perhaps you are aware of writer James Frye who wrote a best-selling memoir of his life on drugs, in prison and other unsavory experiences which led to the
New York Times
best-seller list and a spot on Oprah's couch.

The only problem was, much of his book was fiction and he was verbally spanked throughout the publishing world and almost literally spanked by Oprah. Fiction is fiction and memoir is memoir or so it would seem.

Not so fast. Since the new millennium began, memoirs have been flying off bookstore shelves (okay, not literally flying, but being purchased, so the essence of the sentence is still true) hundreds of times faster (a slight exaggeration perhaps, but still mostly true) than fiction books.

Got a book to write? Memoir is the key if you have dollar signs in your eyes. Or, in my case, if you couldn't write fiction even if a publisher put an Uzi to your head. Okay, a slight exaggeration but still true. I
could
write hideously bad fiction rather than having my ears blown off but you get my point.

Memoir means memory. You remember the stuff you write. If you invent entire escapades and lifestyles, it's fiction, dammit.

Well last month I made my annual pilgrimage to New Orleans for the Saints & Sinners LGBT Literary Conference. There, I had the honor of serving on a panel with other memoirists to discuss the meaning of the genre. The title of the 10 a.m. session was
Truths Stranger Than Fiction: Lives Revealed in Memoir
.

After partying much of the night before on Bourbon Street, drinking innumerable Hurricanes and stumbling back to the hotel while singing show tunes, a 10 a.m. panel was cruel and unusual punishment. Okay, I had exactly four Hurricanes, not
innumerable. I'm trying to stick to the truth here. By night's end I could enumerate the number of drinks I had but not pronounce innumerable.

Well, the session on memoir turned into quite a brawl. Hell, nobody actually wrestled anybody to the floor but to substitute the phrase “loud discussion” would have readers snoring. I will stop with the wordsmithing now. You get my drift. You can be creative with language but not facts. With that thesis in mind, the panel and the audience did indeed have a lively and provocative hour and a half.

After fairly universal agreement that making up events out of whole cloth and deceiving readers with fake exploits was heinous, shades of grey started to emerge. Author Mark Doty, who has written a splendid memoir called
Firebird
and many other delightful books was ready to give a whole lot more artistic license to writers than some others on the panel. He spoke of memory as recalling both the real and the quasi-real, exploring where the mind might take us.

Robert Leleux, author of
Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy
, a current best-seller, seemed to add his voice to Mark's point of view.

I respectfully disagreed. “I believe what we write has to have happened. We can add color, exaggerate for effect and craft words for humor. We can shape time lines to make stories less confusing and more readable. But stories have to be true to call it memoir,” I said.

“Absolutely!” shouted a woman in the second row. “I agree! You have a contract with the reader, asking them to believe what you write!” She was taking no prisoners as she continued to engage Mark and Robert in a debate, citing truth as incontrovertible, with others on the panel agreeing with her, then Mark, then me, then others. But above all this dynamo in the second row kept us returning to truth as sacred.

It wasn't too many minutes into the melee (again, a verbal melee, no upper cuts to the chin) that I realized it was memoirist
Dorothy Allison, author of the astonishing and brilliant
Bastard Out of Carolina
who was taking my side in the debate.

Wow. For a minute I was too humbled to speak again.

I got over it.

Pretty soon talk shifted to Augusten Burroughs whose five memoirs and essay collections have been
New York Times
best sellers. His memoir
Running With Scissors
was positively heartbreaking and hilarious all at once, but its veracity has been challenged in the courts. The loony (according to the author) psychiatrist that Burroughs went to live with after his mother abandoned him – the shrink who purportedly predicted good or bad days by the positions of his turds in the toilet – sued the author for defamation and falsehoods and the case was settled out of court. When I thought the memoir was all true, I was much less disgusted by the telltale turd story.

In the final analysis, everyone on the panel and in the audience that day pretty much agreed. Truth matters. The controversy is in the degrees. And I guess that's what makes horse races and good memoir.

It's a pity Scott McClellan's book about the Bush administration hadn't come out yet. The former press secretary's scathing indictment of his White House days has members of the Bush team shrieking “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Somehow, I am certain that McClellan subscribes to the Dorothy Allison theory of memoir – shirts, shoes and truth required.

Meanwhile, back at the conference, we all partied together – and how it gets retold in memoir will surely be very different for each of us.

In my case I was thrilled to be sharing stories and cocktails with Dorothy Allison, mystery writer JM Redman, and the many friends I have made over the years in New Orleans. When I get around to writing about the adventure I will not leave out the part about my spouse sleeping it off in the bathtub, yours truly knocking over more than one Hurricane at the Good Friends bar or hanging out with our boyfriends at a tavern where scantily clad boys cavorted on the bar. And you can bet
your sweet Hurricane, I may change the names to protect the guilty and leave out a boring incident or two, but the gist of the tale will be: we were fried and it was true.

Memoirs are made of these.

July 2008

APOCALYPSE IN 2012?

The headline on my computer screen said “Thousands expect apocalypse in 2012.” That's right, according to various survival groups, and based on a millennium-old Mayan ritual, the world will be kaput in less that four years – specifically on December 21, 2012. I hope Hanukah comes early that December so I get my presents.

And frankly, if my political party doesn't take over the White House come November I tend to agree with the timetable.

Listen to this: in 2006, a book called
2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
was published and has sold thousands of copies a month. That beats
As I Lay Frying
on Amazon by, well, thousands of copies a month. And while authors disagree about what the heck to expect on that day in December I'm sure we will be easy prey as we all sit around trying to pronounce Quetzalcoatl.

Gee, if the schedule holds, no retirement for me. I just turned 60 and I'm officially in the first wave of 78 million baby boomers – a huge demographic bulge (not me, personally, but there are days…) that will, hopefully, age better than our parents and grandparents did. At least we hope we will.

In fact, not to be mistaken for a fuddy-duddy, I partied on my recent birthday like I was 30. The sad truth hit when I woke up the next day feeling every bit of 90. From what I understand, I was led out of my favorite watering hole and deposited into a taxi. My own personal Armageddon. Why wait for 2012?

And, although it happened five days later, I considered it a belated gift when Senator Jesse Helms passed. On the same day fireworks went off in Rehoboth. Coincidence?

When I wasn't reading about the end of the world, I was enjoying my birthday cards. Like the one that said “Anything Worth Doing is Worth Over-doing.” See Armageddon paragraph above.

Forget about
Last Comic Standing
– I think the most hilarious comedians are now at Hallmark. For example, “What do older women have between their breasts that younger women don't?”

“A belly-button.”

Birthday cards have gone hi-tech. Knowing my youthful indiscretion of marrying an accordion player, my friends delight in watching me twitch and squirm at accordion humor. This year I got a musical card featuring a song on the wretched instrument.

I loved the talking card. On the front was written “I was looking through cards trying to find one for your birthday and I was laughing so hard I …”

You open the card and hear “Clean up on aisle 6….” Ah, Depends humor.

I have to admit, though, a disturbing thing did happen on my birthday. I found myself driving in the middle lane on Route One with my left blinker on for no apparent reason. I knew I'd eventually become a doddering old fart but I didn't think it would happen this fast.

But there seems to be good news on the horizon. Today, on CBS News online, another article on the aging of baby boomers, or in my case gayby boomers reported “…signs suggest…that boomers will enjoy not just increased longevity but better health as well. Boomers may be aging more slowly than previous generations because of healthy habits, such as less smoking and more exercise. Maybe 60 really
is
the new 50.”

Gee, I hope so. But that brings me to the next question. If we are going to live longer lives, how are we going to pay for them?

If I positively knew that the Mayan doomsday was coming, Mamma Mia could I have a great four years. Bring on the wine, women, song and Hostess Ho-Hos. But Quetzalcoatl, even if you could pronounce it, might not happen, and in that case, I have to figure out how long my money is going to last.

Perhaps as a result of this big birthday, or the fact that I'd
put it off long enough, I spent an evening last week with a friend who understands the mysteries of Microsoft Excel. Despite the accompanying Margaritas, it was a sobering exercise.

Since CBS News told me there was a damn good chance of achieving it, we did a spread sheet with the assumption that my spouse and I would live until 100.

But according to the increasingly annoying CBS News article, boomers who retire at 65 need to have enough money to support themselves for 20 to 30 years, and in some calculations that means having $2.5 million in the bank.

Holy Quetzalcoatl, Batman! Don't make me laugh. Or there will have to be cleanup on Aisle 6.

Best we can figure, we can live pretty well until our mid-80s and then, like those Grey Garden gals, it's cat food in a ramshackle house on the shore for us.

I can see us now, sitting in our rocking chairs and staring at the navel between our breasts. With any luck I can still look at hers and she can still look at mine.

Although, if 60 is the new 50, maybe I can just wait a decade until I'm 60
aqain
and worry about the spreadsheet.

In the meantime, if you hear proof of doomsday let me know. And remind me to keep that left turn signal from blinking.