How To Write An Autobiographical Novel

"The story of your life, described, will not describe how you came to think about your life or yourself, not describe any of what you learned. This is what fiction can do--I think it is even what fiction is for"

I find a lot of writing books redundant.

I should clarify: I find a lot of books about the instruction and lifestyle of writing to be redundant. Even a little pointless, and sometimes polarizing after a while.

It's not because I don't like to be told what to do, it's just that you can read so much advice, so much instruction that you spend more time on reading about writing, than actually writing. Also sometimes after reading, I'm left with a tinge of inferiority, that I don't fit the "criteria" for what makes one an illustrious author. How I didn't go to this school, graduate this particular program, know these awesome kooky writing peers, don't live in this bookish cliquish area, not tapping into the right writing 'zen'...catch my drift? Some authors just polarize, marginalize an aspiring writer, making them feel as if us peon hardscrabble scribes can't live up to whatever impossible lifestyle standard, all cause we are not this, that, and come from a certain background.

Granted there are some writing books that don't waste trees, and authors who in innocence just want to humble brag and dish freely about their writing lives, but I myself have certain criteria for what constitutes as a biblical tome for the written word. I prefer a book where the author is conversational, not instructional, and that they come from a real place, not some mythical fantasia of vintage typewriters, high-rise socials, and wrap-around scarves, pipes in the crooks of mouths. Leave that pretension at the doormat, I don't want it tracking in my house. I tend to like a book that just gets to the damn point, and tells me how fucking frustrating, spirit shattering, bloodletting, and all-around grueling writing is, while patting me on the back in support, showing me its ultimate rewards. I like a book that possesses lines like these:

"I think writers are often terrifying to normal people--that is to non-writers in a capitalist system--for this reason: there is almost nothing they will not sell in order to have the time to write. Time is our mink, our Lexus, our mansion. In a room full of writers of various kinds, time is probably the only thing that can provoke widespread envy, more than acclaim" 

"Being a writer can feel a lot like writing and giving up on writing at the same time." 

"Writing fiction is an exercise in giving a shit---an exercise in finding out what you really care about." 

YES. This is what I want. Give me more.


Alexander Chee's How To Write An Autobiographical Novel is the kind of writing book that is my ultimate jam. It's intimate and informal. It's thoughtful in its presentation and design. It's less memoir, and more about celebrating the crazy days and nights we call life and its importance to write it down as honestly and as humanly possible. It's all about living in the moment, and its importance to reflect on such, and how we as individuals are more than just what occurs to us, and how those moments drive us to create. Chee has a camera lens pointed towards his life and the "actors" in it, and its panning, scanning, and recording the expanse, and its why each essay present just moves.

Each person he encounters, each moment he experiences, each idea that is exuded is allowed to be explored with scope and nuance, components that a sprawling memoir can sometimes overlook just to get the timeline moving. Not here. Tarot card reading is more than just flipping some cards ("Much of what I love about literature is also what I love about the Tarot - archetypes at play, hidden forces, secrets brought to light"), apartment renting is far from routine when indie film queen Chloë Sevigny casually strolls in, the nurturing of a neglected rose garden in NYC apartment takes on a Secret Garden twist ("But the creature that grew legs and walked away from the garden was me. I was not their gardener. They were mine."), even serving gigs for the uber-conservative Buckleys offers something more than at appearance level, and Chee's gift for turns of phrases allows each encounter to pulse poetic.

Now this book isn't a cure for writers block, more so for me, it a cure for writer's fatigue. I lost a lot of feeling and words when my mother died a year ago. Though I was typing and scribbling I was doing so in order to fill a void, rather than to nurture the void. Chee is so passionate about writing that it energized me. He had me reevaluate how much of a journey writing is and that it's not something that will always be there, but when it is, it is. Sure, he talks about being in Annie Dillard's writing class during his undergrad, and emerging from the famous Iowa Writer's Workshop, but it's when he discusses how he wrote his debut novel on a subway while waiting tables, turning personal demons into prose, that kind of stuff motivates me to see that obstacles don't dictate the outcome, but enhance it.

Outside of writing, the way Chee discusses loss deeply moved me. Whether it was in dealing with his father's passing, or the friends and acquaintances he lost as the AIDS epidemic raged ignored in the late '80s and early '90s, Chee is sincere in the eulogizing, as he tenderly blurs the bittersweet, and offers great insight and solace amid the transitory. His tying loss to creation was especially powerful. Since my mother was an artist, I was especially touched at Chee's reflections on what that entails for those who are left to admire the deceased's artistic contributions, giving me some food for thought as I (slowly) prepare to swallow sorrow, and go through a lot of my mother's unfinished works:

"When an artist dies young there is always talk of the paintings unpainted, the books unwritten, which points to some imaginary storehouse of undone things and not to the imagination itself, the far richer treasure, lost. All those works are the trail left behind, a path across time, left like the sun leaves gold on the sea: you can see it but you can't ever pick it up. What we lose with each death, though, is more like stars falling out of the sky and into the sea and gone. The something undone, the something that won't ever be done, always remains unendurable to consider. A permanent loss of possibility, so that what is left is only ever better than nothing, but the loss is limitless. [...] But in the end I wonder if it is a mistake to think about what was lost. If it isn't better instead to think about what he gave me."

One of the first thoughts that raced in my mind once I knew my mother was gone had a selfish tinge to it. I was always assured, believed that my mother would've been the first person to read a published book of mine, and I felt incredibly robbed of that. But Chee has allowed me to see that in such sudden loss we're given greater understanding of we as the living should achieve:

"If you are reading this, and you're a writer, and you, like me, are gripped with despair, when you think you might stop: Speak to your dead. Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest of louder or more loving, whatever it is, but ask them in, listen, and then write. And when war comes---and make no mistake, it is already here---be sure you write for the living too. The ones you love, and the ones who are coming for your life. What will you give them when they get there?" 

/////

from the margins

• Rating: ****
• 288 pages
• Published April 17th 2018 by Mariner Books

in the key of...

Kate Bush - "Moments of Pleasure" - "Just being alive/ it can really hurt/ and these moments are given/ are a gift from time" 

The fabulous Ms Bush (to note: I stan for this woman) wrote this beautiful cut in remembrance for family and friends, and I thought it fitting background music for how Chee eulogizes his own family, circle of friends, and the touching moments tied to them throughout this book.

favorite essays  

"The Writing Life"
"My Parade"
"The Rosary"
"Inheritance"
"Impostor"
"The Autobiography of My Novel"
"The Guardians"
"On Becoming an American Writer"