{"id":2494,"date":"2013-08-09T21:40:29","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T01:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=2494"},"modified":"2013-08-09T21:40:29","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T01:40:29","slug":"handling-the-truth-the-perils-and-pleasures-of-memoir-and-how-to-win-this-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/handling-the-truth-the-perils-and-pleasures-of-memoir-and-how-to-win-this-book\/","title":{"rendered":"“Handling the Truth”–the perils and pleasures of memoir (and how to win this book!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"handling_the_truthFINAL\"I<\/span> don\u2019t quite remember how Beth Kephart<\/strong><\/a> and I first met; it feels as if we\u2019ve been friends forever. More than two decades ago, we were young mothers at the same time.\u00a0 We bore babies within a year of each other \u2013 beautiful, sweet-souled sons who didn\u2019t fit the mold or pass the tests or walk or talk on schedule. Sons we loved passionately, observed endlessly, fretted over, and prayed for.<\/p>\n

Motherhood gave each of us our first subject.\u00a0 And I suspect we both began to write for much the same reason: not because we had things figured out, but because we didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Alone with our wondering and our worries, we turned to the page; perhaps it seemed to each of us the safest, most accessible place to wrestle with our mysterious maternal baggage — the unanswerable questions, irrational fears, and secret self-doubts, all inextricably bound up with our faith and hope and unwavering dedication to the vulnerable, precious beings we\u2019d delivered out of our bodies and into the world. Writing about the joys and heartbreaks of raising boys who seemed destined to forge their own solitary paths through the untrammeled territory of childhood, we found our footing as both mothers and writers.\u00a0 And then, through grace or happenstance, we found each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the midst of my early mothering journey, I discovered Beth\u2019s luminous, brave \u00a0memoir about her own young son\u00a0and knew I\u2019d found a soul mate.\u00a0 In that pre-Facebook era, we reached out through time and space and made a connection — a few heartfelt letters and emails, a couple of intimate, memorable phone conversations, a flurry of cards.\u00a0 She came to Boston to speak; I sat in the audience.\u00a0 Afterwards, talking in person at last, we cemented things for good: we might live markedly different lives hundreds of miles apart, but we would also be friends, writing colleagues, fellow travelers.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve read my friend\u2019s work over the years \u2013 blog posts, novels, YA fiction, book reviews, five quietly magnificent memoirs \u2013 I\u2019ve been increasingly in awe.\u00a0 I\u2019m dazzled not only by her output, which is prolific, but even more so by the sheer gorgeousness of her writing, the depth of her knowing and the intensity of her watching, the shimmering intensity with which she translates human experience into words that breathe with life and pulse with truth.<\/p>\n

My e-mails to her are boring, I fear. \u201cHow do you do it?\u201d \u00a0I\u2019ve asked her again and again \u2013 as if Beth could actually offer up the secret ingredient that makes her sentences sing.<\/p>\n

But I should have known that, one day, she\u2019d try to do just that.\u00a0 For she is as generous a writer as she is a friend.\u00a0 And \u2013 lucky for the rest of us \u2013 she is also a thoughtful and devoted writing teacher. \u00a0For years, she has been teaching the art and craft of memoir, sharing the hard-won lessons of experience, dedication, and a lifetime\u2019s worth of reading with the students lucky enough to sit in her Penn classroom.<\/p>\n

N<\/span>ow, the rest of us get to join those students and benefit from Beth\u2019s teaching. This week her beautiful new book about writing memoir, Handling the Truth<\/strong><\/a>, arrived in stores.\u00a0 Which means I don\u2019t ever need to send her one of those \u201cHow do you do it?\u201d e-mails again.\u00a0 I can just return, over and over, to these pages. Ever since I read an early galley months ago (in one day, in one sitting, in awe, as usual), I\u2019ve been eagerly awaiting the day I could finally share finished books with you here.<\/p>\n

Beth has, as the reviewer at Library Journal<\/em> noted, \u201ccreated a work of art simply by reflecting on her own art\u2014the writing and teaching of memoir. . . . She writes with the same lyricism found in her own works and offers here passionate encouragement for would-be memoir writers to embrace truth and empathy, mystery and exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to give copies of this book to all my reading and writing friends.\u00a0 I want to spread the word, gather up an impromptu book group, and then sit down and talk about the perils and pleasures of the writing life, the joys of reading the real stories of real people, and the courage it takes to share your life on the page.\u00a0 This is a subject dear to my heart, of course, and Beth Kephart brings urgent news of the how-to\u2019s and the how-not-to\u2019s.\u00a0 Here, a paragraph from her introduction:<\/p>\n

Handling the Truth<\/strong><\/a> is about the making of memoir, and the consequences.\u00a0 It\u2019s about why so many get it wrong, and about how to get it right.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the big questions: Is compassion teachable? Do half memories count? Are landscape, weather, color, taste, and music background or foreground? To whom does then <\/i>belong? And what rights to memoirists have, and how does one transcend particulars to achieve a universal tale, and how does a memoirist feel, once the label is attached, and what is<\/i> the language of truth? Handling the Truth<\/strong> is about privileges and pleasures, about knowing ourselves.\u00a0 It\u2019s about writing, word after word, small signifiers, and if it swaggers a little, I hope it teaches a lot.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It does teach a lot.\u00a0 It does.\u00a0 I needed this book.\u00a0 So do you.<\/p>\n

\n

How to win a copy. . .<\/span><\/h3>\n

I’ve bought a copy of Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir<\/strong><\/a> to give away here. \u00a0To win, just leave a comment below, answering the question: If you were giving your best friend a copy of your favorite memoir, what would it be?<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0Of course, you can also just say, “Count me in!”<\/p>\n

I’ll draw a winner on Sunday, August 18<\/strong>. \u00a0Good luck to all!<\/p>\n

P.S.\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0As you’ve no doubt noticed, there have been some changes in this space. \u00a0My new, subtly redesigned website was a year in the making, and then, as life would have it, I’ve been too busy with various urgent family concerns to properly “launch” it. \u00a0So, in lieu of online fanfare, I’ve decided to simply give away a book I love \u00a0each week for the next month — one for each of the four themes featured on the new site. \u00a0This week, obviously, we are firmly in the Writing and Reading<\/strong> realm. \u00a0To read more about my own writing process and some books that mean much to me, click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

P.P.S.\u00a0<\/strong>And finally, a big thank you to Elizabeth Marro<\/strong> for her exquisite essay<\/strong><\/a> about loss, friendship, and the effect that reading Magical Journey<\/strong><\/a> had on her as she found her way through grief’s dark night of the soul and, bit by bit, back into the light. I was touched and honored by her humanity and eloquence as she struggled to find a blessing even in a time of great loss.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t quite remember how Beth Kephart and I first met; it feels as if we\u2019ve been friends forever. More than two decades ago, we were young mothers at the same time.\u00a0 We bore babies within a year of each other \u2013 beautiful, sweet-souled sons who didn\u2019t fit the mold or pass the tests or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,8,44,49,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-parenting","9":"category-reading","10":"category-writing","11":"category-writing-and-reading","12":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}