Between a novel and memoir

I made bad choices to prove that I could make choices, maybe

In 2015 I wrote American Mary, a “novel” about a young woman coming of age, wilding out, partying, falling for losers, and trying to understand herself.

I called it a novel because although parts of it are based on true stories, it is not all true. At the time I was really taken by the short novel Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. I mean, I still love that book, but it was especially inspiring to me while writing American Mary. It gave me hope that I could write a novel. I thought: if this book can be called a novel despite being a memoir of short stories strung together, then why couldn’t American Mary?

If an author writes a book partially based on elements from their actual life, I feel like whether it’s called a novel or a memoir is based upon the author’s gender. Women writers are more often accused of writing memoir (even if it’s fiction), whereas men writers do not get that labeling. Novels are treated like a masculine endeavor, serious and artistic, whereas memoir is treated like a feminized thing and is considered less than, craftwise. The same goes for poetry: women poets get the label “confessional” thrown at them in a way that men poets who write similarly do not.

Does that make sense? Is it just me? I don’t know why it bothers me. I think part of it is feeling resentful when people ask me “Did you really do all that?” I want to ask them, “Why do you want to know? Would it change how you feel about the story to know if I really did all that? Would it change how you feel about me?”

My dad read American Mary and enjoyed it, though I know there are parts in the book that made him uncomfortable. I was hesitant when it was first published to show it to family, but I got over that fear. After all, it is a piece of art that I made, and it is fiction. My sister liked it. I’m not sure if my mom read it. I probably wouldn’t show it to my boyfriend, though he did like my book about riding public transit.

My friend and former high-school classmate is currently reading American Mary and messages me on Facebook with questions every time he finishes a section. The other day he asked me, “What is the meaning of Mary always feeling like she’s ‘not here’ or not real? That seems to be the primary struggle of this character. What is the deeper meaning? Why did you make this so central to this character?”

“That's a good question,” I said. “I feel like detachment is kind of unique to our generation, feeling detachment from reality, feeling like life is a movie that we're non-player characters in, wanting to feel like you can make choices instead of just going along with the flow. Maybe more so for women, tho, like being taught from an early age that you're meant to be seen and not heard, then growing up wanting to challenge that idea.”

In all honesty, I don’t actually know why I made it so central to the narrator, except for maybe I was trying to come up with an explanation for why I did some of the things that I did in my late teens and early 20s. I don’t know why I did a lot of things in that era of my life, I don’t know why I was so self destructive. Perhaps I was trying to fill a void, to feel something other than depression and emptiness. I made bad choices to prove that I could make choices, maybe. 

It makes me wonder though, and brings me back to my earlier thoughts on memoir versus novel: would you ask these same questions to a male writer? Would you ask Hunter S. Thompson why he brought all those drugs with him to Las Vegas? Would you ask Denis Johnson why his narrator was going on car rides and swallowing pills stolen from the emergency room without knowing what effect they would have on him?

Why are men allowed to experiment and do weird and destructive things and write about them, but when women do the same it’s seen as shameful, something to be regretted? I brought this question up yesterday in my women’s writing workshop, and another participant said, “For men it’s seen as an adventure, for women it’s seen as a mistake.” I think there’s something to that. What do you think?

Get a copy of American Mary, published by Civil Coping Mechanisms.