My trilogy was inspired by the responses I received to my portfolio in a non-fiction studio four years ago, and is an extension of that work, although far more in depth. In my collection of non-fiction stories I covered issues such as addiction, my sexuality, and the impact mental illness had on me, and my best friend.
I gave a copy to my then-psychiatrist, who was so impressed that he ordered fifteen copies, followed by more orders, for him to distribute to his patients as well as his entire team of mental health workers. Very quickly I began to receive requests from other corners. This was when I realised that my private sales were being spurred on by something more than the sympathetic charity of friends or family, because almost all had been to strangers.
I had a story. A story of trauma, addiction and mental collapse. A story of all the indicators that he brought me there. A story, of stories which I had struggled with in my head for many many years. But ultimately a story of recovery. Confessional memoir writing is an enlightening experience - suddenly I was seeing answers to the many questions in my life, being answered by me on the page.
I began reading more, looking for inspiration from other writers. One writer in particular that made an impact to my approach is Mary Karr, author of The Liar’s Club – A Memoir by Mary Karr
The blurb on the back cover reads:
‘…Mary Karr grew up in a swampy East Texas refinery town at the epicentre of a family full of fierce, volatile attachments. To sort through dark household secrets she looks back through a child’s eyes - and shows us ‘a terrific family of liars and drunks…redeemed by a slow unearthing of truths’ in language reinvented with raw authenticity and brilliant energy…’
This book does not demand sympathy, and slides episodes of sexual abuse into the mix as though it is not the dominant story, just a piece of the puzzle. It is an honest and inspiring read.
... The Liars’ Club, Karr’s 1995 memoir of her Gothic childhood in a swampy East Texas oil-refining town, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, sold half a million copies, and made its forty-year-old author, who was then an obscure poet, a literary celebrity. (The book takes its title from the motley collection of men with whom her father, an oilman, used to drink and tell tales.) Karr has been credited with, and often blamed for, the onslaught of confessional memoirs published during the late nineties. Though many of them matched The Liars’ Club for grotesque subject matter—the young Karr is raped, molested, and made to witness her mother’s monstrous nervous breakdown—few were as unsentimental, as lyrical, or as mordantly funny....
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5992/the-art-of-memoir-no-1-mary-karr
Karr, M. (1995) The Liars Club New York, Penguin Group
... The Liars’ Club, Karr’s 1995 memoir of her Gothic childhood in a swampy East Texas oil-refining town, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, sold half a million copies, and made its forty-year-old author, who was then an obscure poet, a literary celebrity. (The book takes its title from the motley collection of men with whom her father, an oilman, used to drink and tell tales.) Karr has been credited with, and often blamed for, the onslaught of confessional memoirs published during the late nineties. Though many of them matched The Liars’ Club for grotesque subject matter—the young Karr is raped, molested, and made to witness her mother’s monstrous nervous breakdown—few were as unsentimental, as lyrical, or as mordantly funny....
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5992/the-art-of-memoir-no-1-mary-karr
Karr, M. (1995) The Liars Club New York, Penguin Group
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