Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home: Life on the Page

Vladimir Nabakov famously once observed "there is only one school of literature - talent." True or not, writer Lynn Freed shares the great man's sentiment in her beautiful, clever, if occasionally brutal memoir and mediation on the art of writing. Freed, the writer of several very fine novels, but one whose acid pen and command of the art of brevity marks her above all as an author of excellent short stories, here examines her life. From growing up in South Africa, the burden of growing up as the plain daughter (unimaginable as whether in photos or in person the woman oozes charm and sensuality) of a pair of actors, her first failed marriage, her struggles as a writer, and her thoughts on the crafts. Would be writers hoping to tap into her genius through this book will doubtless be surely disappointed. Though a Professor in an MFA program, Freed remains at best suspicious of the notion that one can be taught to be a great writer. That said, she offers a thoughtful guide to what makes for poor writing with observations about the dangers of nostalgia and hollow images. Readers of Freed's supple sparse short stories with their perfectly chosen words will take heart to learn exactly how much she agonized in her efforts to produce her artful characters that leap from the page. On occasion Freed falls backwards, especially when she is considering the work of other authors. Though her pleas that the first requirement of the writer is to read, her observations arrive flat when dealing with specific authors, even as her obvious love of the written word shines through. Readers unfamiliar with Freed would do well to begin their experience of her work elsewhere, I would recommend the sharp gripping collection "The Curse of the Appropriate Man." Yet for fans of Freed like me, who savor her stories and novels as if each were perfectly crafted wines that one can imbibe over and over again, "Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home" comes as a great gift.

In her beautifully composed book of essays about the writing life, "Reading, Writing and Leaving Home," author Lynn Freed explores three main themes. The first is, home, and how it informs and haunts the writer. In Freed's case, home, narrowly seen, is South Africa. Yet home is more than one's country of origin. Here, it includes the slightly-droopy-at-the-edges mansion in which her theatrical parents held court, and significantly, her parents themselves. Though Freed has spent her entire adult life living in the US, her fictional characters always return "home" to South Africa. It is through revealing the landscape of her childhood that she has seen her greatest success as a novelist. Yet finding the right voice with which to expose her familiar world was initially elusive. "For the young expat South African writer of the seventies and eighties, the perceived audience for her writing fell loosely between what I call the Out-of-Africa crowd on the one hand... and the Keepers of the Moral High Ground on the other," Freed writes. "And so, for a number of years, I occupied myself writing predictably horrified short stories placed in South Africa. They were full of fake daring, fake feeling, fake everything. And they were, of course, predictably rejected." Not until a writing teacher encouraged her to "write about her family," did she discover the authenticity that had eluded her. Yet, with that realism came the prospect of truth-telling - her second major theme in the book. In more than one essay, Freed explains why fidelity to subject and character in writing is more important than kindness. "The page will reveal the fake even when the writer is moving herself to tears," she states. To this end she describes the necessity of the writer becoming a virtual serial killer. "Before they can even begin writing [writers] must kill off parents, siblings, lovers, mentors, friends - anyone, in short, whose opinion might matter. If these people are left alive and allowed to take up residence in the front row of the audience, the writer will never be able to get the fiction right. More than this, she will never want to get it right." Telling the truth is not only expressed in revealing others for the flawed human animals they are, but in exposing herself. To this end, the third major theme of the book deals with writing itself - and her own arduous process. Freed is seemingly as free discussing her Mother's melodramas or the talentless, prima donna, students to whom she caters as a MFA creative writing teacher, as she is examining her own missteps and dark nights of the soul. In "False Starts and Creative Failure," she writes of her near-inability to produce the "second" novel for which her publishers were clamoring. She shares one stillborn opening paragraph after another; one meaningless title after another; as if getting either of those right would begin the effortless flow that produces a book. "Of course, it was hopeless," she admits. "Still, I ch

Lynn Freed is a brilliant writer. Incisive, insightful and equally as tough on herself as on others, she wrestles with the twin paradoxes of mystery and truth. Her voice is precise, elegant and shaped by ruthless self-editing. I recommend this book highly to anyone who appreciates writing. And for anyone who writes, this book is a must. What Freed protests she cannot do in the classroom, she does with remarkable depth on the page.

In these eleven essays, Freed bares her heart in a combination memoir and reflection on writing, life and the blurred edges between the two. A native South-African, Freed is an award-winning author of five novels and a short story collection, a woman with a unique voice in the modern world. Freed shares the sources of her inspiration and the myriad ways autobiography shapes fiction, tackling her topics with refreshing directness, examining the writer's role in defining and molding characters. The author makes a strong case for those who suffer for their parent's "benign neglect", a condition that allows the writer-in-training to observe society and her response to it: "My sense of male entitlement has carried easily into every sphere of my life." Freed's childhood fascination with witches and goblins is soon replaced by the nightmarish images of the Holocaust; given access to everything in her parent's extensive library, these are the volumes remain etched in her consciousness, a hint of the world beyond fairytales. The third daughter, with two beautiful sisters and a number of miscarried brothers: "I was treated with amusement, like a sort of wild card." Enjoying this particular cachet in the family hierarchy, Freed remarks, "The bolder I was, the better they liked it". Eventually, her facile jousting with words is the only tool the young girl uses for engaging the opposite sex, coming into her own later. Her South African roots still evident, Freed leaves home for New York and beyond, carrying with her the memories of apartheid and Jewish history, armed with her imagination and sharp wit. One shocking, albeit important, statement is that "writers are natural murderers", suggesting we must kill off anyone whose opinion matters, anyone who will restrict the work "down to the heart of the matter within". And she talks about motivation: "Revenge, for the purpose of fiction, concerns power... the power to expose... the power to understand." The challenge is to find the proper subject in a chaotic memory, to focus and refine, "What the writer must know is how things happen, not why." Certainly, this is a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of writing about those we know, which is all we can write about with any authority. The author's honesty is refreshing, one of the reasons this book is such a delight to read. These essays are full of lessons: fiction does not come out of ideas; fiction is achieved through creative failure; longing for an audience guarantees none; and the truth is the life at the very heart of the failure. One of my favorite essays is "Taming the Gorgon", a piece that speaks to a mother's role, barrier or conduit between her child and the future: "When I came back to where I had begun... my mother had come along with me. And so had her voice." Luan Gaines/2005.

Michael Cunningham once opined that a perfect world would be one in which Lynn Freed was a household name. A nice sentiment, but one that could only ever be a dream. For what makes Freed so brilliant is her fearless insight. In order to be a household name, Freed would have to temper her thoughts and opinions, and that would be a miserable loss. At its heart, this collection is about place and home and loss and more loss. But in its smart humor and intelligence it reads like the best fiction. It's a relief to find that after all her years involved with academe, Freed can write with such elan and acumen without ever crossing the border into pretentiousness. At first glance, however, you sense that this is a book of musings. Unless you look at the first essay as an integral part of all that follows, it seems a little facile and breezy. And the uncareful reader will get the feeling that Freed is trying too hard to pull the audience in, especially with titles such as "Sex with the Servants." But "...Servants" goes so deep, is so far-reaching, so self-examined, so multi-dimensioned and layered, that you wonder if Freed doesn't see writers as servants themselves. And in service to whom? To what? Are writers servants to their readers who want to know "Did this really happen?" "How much of this is true?" Writers are certainly not in service to the art of writing, Freed seems to argue. Most writing fails, she persuades, not because of a fickle market or a bad agent or any other reason than the writer is being public and dishonest. (Freed's previous book, a collection of stories, "The Curse of the Appropriate Man" shows the rewards of a private voice in fiction.) Her body of reference in these essays is thick with Greene and Austen and Duras, among others (including a brilliantly hilarious and sagacious father and mother), but Freed seems to tap into Naipaul more than others. And what a perfect match. In his novel, "A Bend in the River," Naipaul offers what is the finest opening sentence of the 20th century: "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." You get the feeling of certainty that gender politics are far far off Naipaul's radarscreen. And thankfully, Freed is equally uninterested in playing along with any sort of political correctness. For many years Freed has been known as one of the toughest workshop teachers in this country, and she has taken a lot of flack lately for her infamous piece on creative writing workshops which recently appeared in Harpers and is included in this collection ("Doing Time"). But she is also admired by her peers for her demanding honesty and her refusal to take herself too seriously. And in fact, it's when you get past the heavier pieces, daunted, wondering if you've ever known so smart a person, that you land on her comic pieces like the one on snoring. That's when you realize, yes, this is brilliance. And humanity. For by t