fascinating attempt to describe the individual act of creative writing for others to read. i wish you could spend less time in marketing/social internetworking, but with luck you'll be thinking and writing long enough to find your literary/social sweet spot. please keep doing your thing.
This is a nice discussion of the form of the memoir. I don't recall if you have read Glen Loury's memoir, but I highly recommend it, especially its meta level discussion of the form in the introduction.
"Not all of the complexities of human life can be flattened into neat categories." True! And this insight prompts a number of further thoughts:
1. The older I get the more I realize that the art of living a good life, is mostly an exercise in ad hoc balancing rather than following rules or even following a golden mean. There are so few hard and fast rules, that when one comes along it is really extraordinary. This also applies to insights from statistical analyses as well: generally, at best they suggest another thing that might affect something we care about some of the time.
2. Although I share your preference for writing in the abstract rather than stories, I have grudgingly come to accept that it is stories that are far more likely to persuade than data. This is especially true when the stories are true. Thus the power of history and biography.
You keep getting better - both the writing and the insights. Explaining you to a friend I just gave the book to, mentioned that in the podcasts/interviews you're doing, you really listen to the questions and there are the flashes across your face of "Oh, I hadn't seen it quite that way." I think that mental flexibility is what makes your thinking, writing, and interviewing so engaging.
as difficult as it was, we readers and listeners owe you a solid debt of gratitude for sharing your story, the good, bad and the embarrassing. I’d like to send you a personal thanks because I was able to lend your book to a family with an adopted son who shares many of your earlier life circumstances. This teen will soon be of age to make decisions about his future. I’m proud to have been able to loan the family my personal copy of the book and I have no doubt whatsoever that your story will resonate with the youth and his adoptive family and inspire future choices.
I especially like the insight on the 'suspense paradox.' I find the 'how did it happen?' question is what makes a story meaningful, not just the 'what happened', which is sort of just a commentary on the 'how.' Anyway, Troubled is a necessary book and a great read.
Hard to pick just one. Glenn Loury's that came out earlier this year is excellent. Thomas Sowell's. Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
Definitely want to read the George Orwell one. I would recommend A Moveable Feast by Hemingway if you get the chance.
Glad you included Sowell's. I thought you were a bit down on it in your review given your warranted skepticism of some of his claims. I loved Knowledge and Decisions so I'll give his a read.
“Writing about research and ideas comes much more easily to me than the kind of personal and creative writing that memoir demands. My PhD thesis was far less difficult for me to write than Troubled. It wasn’t even close.”
Wow—forgot you had shared this before. What a contrast! For me it’s the opposite: memoir flows almost effortlessly, sometimes whole sections just pour out in one sitting. Academic writing though? 😅 I’ll gladly leave that arena to you.
You alluded to orphans, but said nothing about orphanages, which used to be the standard institution for housing and taking care of children who today go into the foster system. Is there a case for resurrecting the orphanage as a better way to deal with children without families?. As an anecdote, I met an 84 year-old former airline stewardess online who grew up in Chicago. At one point as a young teenager she and her younger sister (I forget the reason why) were placed in a Catholic orphanage. I said I'm sorry that happened to you. She said, oh no, it was one of the happiest periods of my life. What do you think?
fascinating attempt to describe the individual act of creative writing for others to read. i wish you could spend less time in marketing/social internetworking, but with luck you'll be thinking and writing long enough to find your literary/social sweet spot. please keep doing your thing.
This is a nice discussion of the form of the memoir. I don't recall if you have read Glen Loury's memoir, but I highly recommend it, especially its meta level discussion of the form in the introduction.
"Not all of the complexities of human life can be flattened into neat categories." True! And this insight prompts a number of further thoughts:
1. The older I get the more I realize that the art of living a good life, is mostly an exercise in ad hoc balancing rather than following rules or even following a golden mean. There are so few hard and fast rules, that when one comes along it is really extraordinary. This also applies to insights from statistical analyses as well: generally, at best they suggest another thing that might affect something we care about some of the time.
2. Although I share your preference for writing in the abstract rather than stories, I have grudgingly come to accept that it is stories that are far more likely to persuade than data. This is especially true when the stories are true. Thus the power of history and biography.
You keep getting better - both the writing and the insights. Explaining you to a friend I just gave the book to, mentioned that in the podcasts/interviews you're doing, you really listen to the questions and there are the flashes across your face of "Oh, I hadn't seen it quite that way." I think that mental flexibility is what makes your thinking, writing, and interviewing so engaging.
Tucking this away as one of my mainstays for writing a memoir. Thank you.
as difficult as it was, we readers and listeners owe you a solid debt of gratitude for sharing your story, the good, bad and the embarrassing. I’d like to send you a personal thanks because I was able to lend your book to a family with an adopted son who shares many of your earlier life circumstances. This teen will soon be of age to make decisions about his future. I’m proud to have been able to loan the family my personal copy of the book and I have no doubt whatsoever that your story will resonate with the youth and his adoptive family and inspire future choices.
I especially like the insight on the 'suspense paradox.' I find the 'how did it happen?' question is what makes a story meaningful, not just the 'what happened', which is sort of just a commentary on the 'how.' Anyway, Troubled is a necessary book and a great read.
Your final sentence was perfect—and I felt that it conveyed the strongest emotion of the book—a deep level of pain.
Favorite memoir?
Hard to pick just one. Glenn Loury's that came out earlier this year is excellent. Thomas Sowell's. Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
Interesting choices.
Definitely want to read the George Orwell one. I would recommend A Moveable Feast by Hemingway if you get the chance.
Glad you included Sowell's. I thought you were a bit down on it in your review given your warranted skepticism of some of his claims. I loved Knowledge and Decisions so I'll give his a read.
thank you for sharing some of your learnings from the process 🙌
“Writing about research and ideas comes much more easily to me than the kind of personal and creative writing that memoir demands. My PhD thesis was far less difficult for me to write than Troubled. It wasn’t even close.”
Wow—forgot you had shared this before. What a contrast! For me it’s the opposite: memoir flows almost effortlessly, sometimes whole sections just pour out in one sitting. Academic writing though? 😅 I’ll gladly leave that arena to you.
You alluded to orphans, but said nothing about orphanages, which used to be the standard institution for housing and taking care of children who today go into the foster system. Is there a case for resurrecting the orphanage as a better way to deal with children without families?. As an anecdote, I met an 84 year-old former airline stewardess online who grew up in Chicago. At one point as a young teenager she and her younger sister (I forget the reason why) were placed in a Catholic orphanage. I said I'm sorry that happened to you. She said, oh no, it was one of the happiest periods of my life. What do you think?
As a foster child myself, this sums up my entire existence - "What the orphans seek, is a place to belong and a right to be there…"