Taking in Secondhand Criticism
“I loved your book but my mom didn’t”
A memoir is not actually an invitation for people to judge the events of your life — it’s a work of literature and memory. But readers don’t always see it that way. They often take reading one as an opportunity to evaluate the author’s life decisions, especially if that person is a woman. Double if she’s a mother.
I knew this going into the process of memoir writing and experienced grave anxiety about it, but I didn’t feel entitled to the worry. Could I really complain about mean girls on Goodreads if I’d put sordid details about my life out there for all to see? Wasn’t I, in some sense, asking for judgment?
If you’re able to sell a book about your life in the first place, it’s probably had some fairly dramatic ups and downs. In my case, these were mainly to do with addiction and love. I wrote about growing up with addiction in my family, and in particular about a long romantic relationship I had with a man addicted to drugs. I also disclosed my own excessive alcohol and drug use and, at the end, my decision to get sober. I am a middle child and have been a people-pleaser — a doormat, if we’re being honest — for much of my life, so the act of telling the truth about myself, of risking displeasing people, felt radical and scary.
