The elusive memoir

 

For some time now, as in years not months, I’ve been stewing over writing a memoir. There are several memoirists in my favorite small, online writing group, and I think if they can do it, so can I. Some friends tell me I’ve had such an interesting life, that I should chronicle it.

A couple of roadblocks: one is the distinction between memoir and autobiography. The latter covers your entire life, from birth to the moment of writing and, as someone said, is like an unfinished symphony. How will it end? Unfortunately you (or I) won’t be around to add that ending. And unless you’re a brilliant stylist, autobiography can get boring.

Memoir on the other hand either recounts a specific time or event in your life or traces a theme that has been present for your whole life. I’ve toyed with all those ideas and come up empty. Sometimes I think these blogs will provide material—and they might if, for instance, I ever took the time to weed out all the ones about writing. Or all the ones about family. I’ve started several times and gotten bogged down each time.

Today, I happened across a review of a book titled Fast-Draft Your Memoir. At this point in my life, with over a hundred books on my list, both fiction and nonfiction for adults and young adults, and with several nice awards won, I have long ago left “how-to” write books behind. If I don’t know how to do it by this point, I better quit—and there are days I feel that way. But today it was the fast draft part of the title that caught my attention—the book was cheap, so I ordered it.

And the author’s captivating style drew me in. She clarified that distinction between autobiography and memoir. Clearly, she favors the latter (and teaches courses on it at Stanford, not a tiny recommendation). I devoured her examples and then sat at thought about my life and what theme I would craft a memoir around.

I’ve often thought of writing a book about dogs I have loved, and that still might work, but is that really the part of my life I want folks to remember? If you ask me what the most important thing I have done in my life is, I would without hesitation answer raising four beautiful, wonderful people as a single parent. But another theme that grows increasingly important in my life is cooking.

That’s when it hit me: I have already written a memoir. Wrote it back in 2009. Title? Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books. It’s a cookbook/memoir, not an unusual combination these days. I divided my life into four periods (I’d add a fifth now, but that’s another story):  A Meat-and-Potatoes Household; Marriage and Two New Worlds of Food; The Casserole Years; Living Alone and Liking It—Well, Most of the Time.

The first section chronicles my Chicago childhood in a meat-and-potatoes household, where my dad’s British tastes set the tone for the daily menus, though Mom slipped in some of her German heritage (she hated sauerkraut and I never tasted it until I was grown). That section is also a tribute to Mom who was a patient guide in the kitchen and let me make messes because she saw that as part of the learning process. To this day I clean the kitchen as I go along. I can’t stand a messy kitchen with piles of dirty dishes. Whatever joy my cooking brings me and others is due to my mom.

When I married and moved to Texas, I was introduced to two new food cultures: the Jewish food of my new husband’s background and the Mexican foods and barbecue of Texas. For this section and the next one, I queried my four children for dishes that they particularly remembered and got responses of everything from green noodles to my signature recipe for Doris’ Casserole. The casserole years were when the kids were teens with voracious appetites and the budget was short. But all four knew that if you weren’t working (and they all had after-school jobs by the time they were sixteen), you’d better be home and at the dinner table by six. And you never missed Sunday dinner when there were often fifteen or more at the table. And finally there were the years of living alone, when I entertained with frequent dinner parties and an annual big Christmas parties for seventy or more and loved every minute of it.

The book was published by State House Press. When it came out, it had a picture of Jacob on the cover, because his nursery school had put him in a chef’s toque and jacket for some occasion, and it was too cute to resist. It caused a furor among the parents of my other grands and had an unfortunate marketing consequence—people thought it was a children’s cookbook—it is not. Want to check it out? It’s on Amazon: Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books (Stars of Texas Series): Alter PhD, Dr. Judy: 9781933337333: Amazon.com: Books

So there you have it: the memoir I forgot I’d written. It’s about cooking, but it’s also so much about raising my family. Should I do another? I don’t know. I’m debating about themes. Any suggestions are welcome.