Someone Mutters, and the Street Lamp Sputters
Memory, all alone in the moonlight. These novels successfully play with the form of memoir.
What better subject is there than self? I, myself, could go on for hours about the subject. Just ask my husband. *rimshot*
But seriously, it takes a very talented and compelling author to make the self interesting to a large group of complete strangers without seeming incredibly self-absorbed, rambling, or boring. We want juicy details, the kind of stories you’d normally only share with good friends. We want vulnerability and a peek behind the curtain. What we want least of all is a rote play by play. Give us color and life! If I wanted to read Wikipedia, I’d watch the Crown. (And of course, it’s a queer act to skip automatically and immediately to the Personal Life section.)
It just so happens that the library has sent me a couple different (sort of) memoir forms in quick succession, so let’s celebrate that below. It’s also another week where all the authors happen to be very attractive people, which seems like an unfair distribution of gifts from some higher power.
THE LIBRARY IS OPEN
A Minor Chorus
by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2022)
One of my loudest soapbox items as a reader is finding books with stories that occur outside of major American cities. We’ve tread so much ground in LA and NY that I place an informal quota on the number of books I read each year that are set in these places. I was thrilled, then, when one of the many algorithms I unwillingly participate in brought A Minor Chorus to my attention. It’s set in Northern Alberta, a place I’ve never been and, and if we’re being honest, am unlikely to ever go. It’s also blurs the lines between memoir and not really a memoir, prose and poetry, and truth and embellishment in clever and profound ways.
Our protagonist, a queer Indigenous doctoral student, is adrift and uninspired by his work and steps away from his university to write a novel to figure himself out and reflect the lives of those around him, namely other Indigenous folks who are underrepresented in writing. It’s unclear how much of what happens is the real-life experience of our author, a queer Indigenous poet who wants to write a novel, but he weaves the experience of family members, Tribe members, and himself through essays which are couched as conversations to research his novel. We meet his incarcerated cousin, his matriarch grandmother, and many Grindr hookups. (Anyone who’s ever used Grindr in rural areas can attest to the bleak landscape presented here.)
The punchy novel is more like a novella, but it’s packed with things that will stick with you. If you’ve come for a plot with any sort of velocity, you’ve come to the wrong place. Try another province, perhaps. The strong writing, no surprise from a poet, is the main attraction here, and if you’re curious about places and people outside of your orbit, chances are this might be a great place to open your mind.
Read it if you like: Indigenous culture, CanCon lit, gay sex scenes, auto-fiction, people fleeing academia
My Government Means to Kill Me
by Rasheed Newson (2022)
This book cover absolutely rules, no? This novel does too. The title is badass. And when speaking about it, it gives the reader the excellent opportunity to use a big, German literature word because it’s a bildungsroman! This wonderful bildungsroman is constructed as a fictional memoir of a Black, queer, teenage runaway who grows up in and around the early AIDS activism movement in New York in the 80s/90s. (If you, too, have a limit regarding the number of New York books you read in a year, this is an excellent book that should surely make the cut.)
Earl “Trey” Singleton III leaves his rigid parents and his trust fund behind in Indiana by running away to New York City with only a few dollars to his name. He meets a cast of characters to lead him to his sexual and political awakening, including sex worker who caters to the upper class, a lesbian who runs a renegade elder care clinic that takes care of the men no one else will, and Larry Kramer himself. He goes through the abusive training to pass the test to join a new and increasingly visible group called ACT UP, and the rest, as they say, is history. If this sounds too maudlin, I assure you it’s not. The book is electric and is exactly the kind of story which should be adapted into a multiple part series that we all tweet about, but probably never will be.
This will likely end up being one of my favorite reads of the year for offering a new spin on a story I thought I knew well. In an age where so many forces don’t want you to hear the truths presented within, I hope stories like these never stop being told.
Read it if you like: POSE, the 80s, queer resistance, activism, dark humor
All the Women in My Brain
by Betty Gilpin (2022)
If you read celebrity memoirs, and you’re me, you might often walk away with a feeling like this: Ok, that was fun, but be real. They didn’t write this alone, did they?
An antidote to that is All the Women in My Brain by Betty Gilpin with a voice so singular, frenetic, and heartfelt that it surely could not have been ghostwritten by anyone else but this woman. Betty is the thrice Emmy-nominated star of GLOW, among others things, including, as she tells us, a guest spot on every Law & Order variety that has ever existed. Her writing style sounds like actually being stuck in someone’s brain. It took me a moment to get into the flow of the language, but eventually you feel like you’re welcomed into her brain to meet the other women there with open arms. There are insane metaphors upon insaner metaphors. There is self-deprecation, vulnerability, and hilarity. Most of all, there is a real person who seems rather unfazed by the trappings of celebrity, which she breaks down with such precision and wordplay that you wish she had an essay for everything. Here’s a great one about her boobs!
I wish more celebrity memoirs were like this, not only for the behind the scenes gossip or real deal talk about how things work, but also for her incredible stories about finding love too early and the way a dog unexpectedly changed her life. I can’t wait to read more of Betty as she becomes more famous for what she has to say.
Read if you like: Funny ladies, entertainment reporting, manic wordplay, celebs who defy stereotypes, books with incredible last lines.
LIGHTNING ROUND
One of my favorite memoirs ever allegedly will have a follow-up sometime soon, but when?
The memoir that launched a million “Yes…and” improv jokes is one of the few audiobooks I’ve ever listened to.
Speaking of playing with memoir form, this one stretched the limits of what memoirs can be and how many genres they can encompass, and it has a reveal that made me scream.
Until next time…Happy reading!