Confessions of an Inconsistent Autobiographer
Step 1: Denial
I like getting published. It certainly beats the alternative. I even like, often a lot, finding myself in some public space and fielding questions, at times asked by perfect strangers, about the things I’ve published. I usually feel very fortunate at these times.
But there is a certain question that can turn such moments sour. It’s actually a cluster of questions, all of which include some form of the word “autobiography.” The otherwise admirable question-asker, who, against all odds, willingly transported him or herself to this public space in order to listen to me and my nonsense, wants to know: did any of this happen to you, and if so, which parts?
The curiosity behind this question is understandable enough, since an honest response can, on occasion, provide a far-from-boring bit of information. Examples: “Wow, Writer Q really did sleep with his mother’s dental surgeon!” “Did you know that Writer Z was addicted to Afrin?” [It’s a nasal spray, and no, I was not addicted to it. Nor does my mother have dental surgeon.] I suppose such knowledge counts for something.
All the same, this question displays disinterest, and possibly even contempt, for the entire fictional enterprise, which, as Tolstoy may once have said, is “all about making shit up” (loose translation from the Russian). Asking about autobiography is to fail to value fiction on its own terms. This line of questioning replaces an interest in the writer’s imagination with a desire for gossip.
So, when I first got published, my hostility toward this question would lead me to respond with a curt “No.” Unlike most of my answers to other questions, I would keep this response short, in part to nip the whole aggravating matter in the bud, and, honestly, in part to make the person who asked it feel just a tad uncomfortable and thus less likely to ever ask this question, to me or anyone else, in public ever again.
Step 2: Accept You Have a Past
The other reason I didn’t feel bad about that blunt “no” of mine is that it was, I believed at the time, an accurate answer. With the exception of pages 41 and 43 of my short story collection (involving me and my fifth-grade breasts), nothing in these fictions had ever happened to me. The events and characters were imagined.
Yet over time I realized the situation was actually a bit more complicated. Many of these stories had, sometimes at their very core, an emotion that was drawn directly from my own psychological past. I had felt something specific and complicated, and some version of this feeling had been transplanted, however consciously, into my fiction.
This realization concerning my private past didn’t lead to me changing my public answer, and not only because my book tour was pretty much over by then. It was just that an answer of this sort stuck me as a) unnecessarily revealing, and b) not really what the question-asker was looking for in the first place. In order to illustrate point “b,” ask yourself who would ever want to say, or even think, the following: “Wow, can you believe that Writer Y is, if he’s going to be entirely honest about it, haunted more by his sense of helplessness in regards to fixing our broken world than he is about the brokenness of the world itself, however much this feeling of helplessness could only be felt with such force if Writer Y did in fact truly feel horrible about our world’s brokenness?”
Step 3: What Doesn’t Kill Us Might Make for a Good and even Useful Premise For a Short Story
Acknowledging the place of my emotional past in my writing didn’t change my answer to the question of autobiography, but it did, in at least one case, alter my writing. And not just the content, but also the very motivation behind writing fiction in the first place. The idea was to move beyond sublimation straight to exorcism.
To get a little more specific: I have been a Detroit Lions fan for my entire conscious life. This is, as far as these things go, a horrible fate. The Lions suck. They have sucked, consistently and often intensely, for the vast majority of my conscious life. All the same, I care about them and in this way invite disappointment and sorrow to be delivered into my world each Sunday for sixteen straight Sundays from September through December every year.
This example may sound surprisingly and hilariously insignificant. I won’t argue. But I will say that the above paragraph was not intended to serve as one of my essays (many?) comic moments. Tragic-comic perhaps.
So I thought: maybe if I write a story about a guy who shares this feeling with me, a feeling stemming from the pointless suffering endured by an incurable Lions fan, and maybe if this guy tells his story as an act of finally and officially rejecting his allegiance with the Lions, then maybe, whether or not he succeeds, I’ll be able to stop caring (about the Lions).
Step 4: My Name is Todd and I’m a Lions Fan
The result of this plan is a story called “Silver and Blue,” which, for whatever reason, takes the form of a very long letter to Customer Care at DirecTV. Here I articulated the whole hideous complex of my affection for the franchise so that I might consider it from a distance and then, finally, walk away once and for all. I sent the piece to the handful (the very small handful) of people I know who are both literate and Lions fan. They congratulated me, both for the story and the plan. I thought I was done. One stone (the story), two birds (artistic glory and pigskin detox).
But, as it turned out, I was not so fortunate. After 7600 words and a number of revisions, I found that I still cared for the Lions. I learned this the hard (and weird way) during a year I spent abroad in Israel, where, for reasons that still elude me, the Lions’ games were picked up no fewer than six times over the course of a single, pointless season by whichever Fox affiliate is responsible for sending its digital signal to the Middle East. Thanks to the time difference, my stubborn habit had me staying up until 4am to watch my team continue to be very bad at playing football. Like a masochistic lover mistreated time and again, I stared the Detroit Lions (the players, the coaches, the ownership) straight in the eyes, told them I never wanted to see them again, but then stood transfixed by the television, unable to turn away from another 34-6 drubbing at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings. That’s the sad autobiographical truth.
Step 5: One Game at a Time
The only consolation here is that my story seems to have been favorably received by the good man running this site. It was even anthologized. And I supposed that ought to count for something. Maybe even you, fair reader, will be inclined to hunt down my piece. And then maybe you’ll read it, and maybe you’ll like it, and maybe, just maybe, it will finally get you to address that Pittsburgh Pirates habit of yours.
As you have may have noticed by now, the present piece is loosely organized along the lines of some sort of AA twelve-step confession. I can’t say I’m entirely sure that was the way to go, but it’s too late to turn back now. As I search for an appropriate ending to this silliness, I will pretend I’ve earned the right to offer some wisdom to those fellow travelers who recognize a bit of themselves in my journey. So here it is, do’s and don’ts from the intersection of fiction and fandom:
- Don’t ask writers about autobiography.
- Don’t raise your children in any of the following cities
if you intend on having a television:
Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and, if you have any weakness for basketball, Golden State, which I think is a city in Northern California.
- Don’t write short stories (or novels, probably) about feelings (or sympathies) you have that you wish you didn’t have. Not because it’s bad literature (which it may be), but because it won’t do anything for you except give it all a name.
- I don’t know how a poem might operate in this instance.
- There are no do’s on this list.
Step 6. Hitting Rock Bottom
We’ll here’s the good news: it can only get better. The Lions went 0-16 last year. Sixteen games in which you score less than your opponent. Which, in case you’re wondering, had never been done before. In other words, it’s not a stretch to say that last year’s team was the worst team in the eighty-nine year history of the NFL. Not that I care, but this season will have to be easier on us all. At least I hope it will be.
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