Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir

Now that we hear so much about the post-traumatic stress syndrome that cripples a startling number of veterans returning from Iraq, we are increasingly aware of what a monumental influence trauma can have on an individual's life and on our society. But psychological traumas occur not only in the killing fields but also in seemingly ordinary homes where children and adults sometimes suffer severe psychological trauma from a variety of sources. McDonnell writes for those people who are haunted by painful personal experiences. She artfully guides her readers through lessons in the delicate process of writing about a past that is difficult and unpleasant to recall. And she holds out the hope that the process will be healing.

If you're writing your story, this little book (it's only 161 pages, including the list of recommended readings) will be a wonderful companion. It is about writing ourselves through, and out of, crises in our lives--times of pain and anguish, times of loss. It is about using the memoir as a testimony to our survival. It was written by a woman who has been teaching the memoir for sixteen years, in a college course called "Witness Narratives: Memoirs of Survival." She is also the author of her own memoir, News from the Border, the story of her life with her autistic son--and of her own difficult experience of alcoholism. The "crisis memoir," as McDonnell calls it, has become an important form, enjoying great popularity among readers. She cites Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face, Mary Karr's The Liars' Club. McDonnell argues that writing is therapeutic, and that if you have experienced trials and traumas, writing your own crisis story may be a way for you to begin to heal and understand. She deals with such important questions as "talking back" to our inner censors, learning to remember painful experiences, using our imaginations to explore the past, and finding an appropriate voice for the story we have to tell. Each chapter includes useful examples, discussion, and four or five helpful writing exercises. If you have a difficult story to tell and you're finding it hard to get started on the work of writing, read this fine little book. It will show you that you aren't alone in writing about the experience of pain--and that you can use your writing to help you survive. by Susan Wittig Albert for Story Circle Book Reviews www.storycirclebookreviews.org reviewing books by, for, and about women

Writers often work alone, winding their way through often-dark passages of memory. With Jane Taylor McDonnell's warm, wise book as a guide, writing is less lonely, less frightening, especially when one is writing about a difficult obstacle life has thrown their way, be it a friend's suicide, a child with autism, or the too-often-neglected childhood traumas, which has rightfully come into its own alongside literature of the Vietnam War and now the war in Iraq. You may not think you can write like Tobias Wolff (This Boy's Life) or Mary Karr (The Liar's Club), but McDonnell offers her supportive cousel like a hand held out to guide us. In this, the only writing how-to book to cover exclusively crisis memoirs (Vivian Gornick, McDonnell's mentor, has written a terrifically useful book on the wider issue of autobiographical writing). McDonnell warns against the most common traps the crisis memoir writer can fall into: too much self-focus, self-indulgence, or overt emotionality, and offers the instruction every writer needs to give their own work universal appeal. Ethical topics are covered efficiently and closely, such as the use of recalled dialogue and compressed memories. Above all, McDonnell teaches writers to be searchingly honest, using photos or interviews if necessary to recall key elements that may not have come to the forefront of consciousness. McDonnell is the teacher you always wanted, at times funny, always caring, and her own writing is exemplary. She emphasizes that especially when writing about an emotional topic, the writing must have distance and clarity, while evoking the feel of an event. Gornick's introduction nearly takes over the stage, but McDonnell steers a clear course, offering a flashlight for the dark parts. E. Brinkley, Seattle

"Memoir writing shares with fiction writing the obligation to lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform an event, deliver wisdom," Vivian Gornick states in her foreword to Living to Tell the Tale, a point McDonnell (who teaches memoir writing classes) proves in what follows. In the first few pages of the book we see she's a formidable talent in command of her subject: "It isn't enough just to live a life; we must be continually explaining it to ourselves, sorting, remembering, casting out the less important stuff, interpreting, sometimes justifying ourselves to ourselves."The first half of the book offers strategies (such as "learning to remember") designed to help generate material, while the second half provides techniques to use in shaping your story, complete with examples from published and student memoirs. Describing the rich content of photographs - in particular, the material gleaned from a photo from her own past - McDonnell notices, "Only after I had written and rewritten this passage did I discover that I was at least three selves within it."She goes on to describe the value of other documents and provides insight into what to tell - and what not to tell - in writing memoir.In the end, McDonnell lends an artistry to her understanding of the form that is nothing less than sensational.

Has anything drastic ever happened to you and you couldn't find a way to deal with it? Or you were so hurt from an experience the only way that you saw fit to overcome it was to write about it? That is what Jane Taylor McDonnell's book, Living to Tell the Tale is about. It is a book to help a writer overcome a bad experience from the past. This book is set up in a way that the reader will find all the proper and necessary steps in writing a book about memoirs easy. Memory is the key part in writing about an experience. Her suggestions for trying to remember details include making lists of all the things that the writer can and cannot remember. Think of the little details that are important in the story. Another way to get the memory working for writing your book is to use pictures and legal documents such as wills, divorce papers, and receipts to help remember things from the past.McDonnell uses language that is easy for the reader to comprehend, no matter what degree of education the reader may have. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is going to write a book or a paper about a past experience that was very painful.