My Month of Miserable Memoirs

And another three months slip by, just like that.

Juggling all the things when you’re trying to write is not easy. I ‘finished’ my memoir some months ago, but have been in an editing frenzy, that feels like a carnival ride that I can’t get off. Where do you stop?

And on the other hand, there is the shiny new project seducing you with its charms and excitement, enticing you away from completing this first work.

This month, I have finally started pitching, to agents and publishers. Dipping my toe in the scary water. I’ve had my first official rejection, and am attempting to deal with all the feelings with grace. It’s not easy. But, it’s part of the game, and I chose to play. Writing the book felt like an insurmountable task, but I realise now, I’m only at the beginning.

Part of the fun that is the pitching process is providing potential publishers and agents with comparative book titles. These are books that have a similar tone, voice, theme, or audience to the book being pitched. As my book is memoir, about grief, trauma, and suicide, my comp reading search has led me to read a lot of memoirs.

My writing wifey, Amanda and I were talking the other night about what we’ve been reading and she scolded me for reading too much miserable memoir. It’s true. I’ve read some harrowing, heartbreaking material in the last six weeks. From a woman who escorted her husband with dementia to Switzerland to voluntarily die with assistance, to another woman whose partner died unexpectedly, in the bed next to her at 23 years old.

The thing is, although all of the stories I have read are about tragedy, every one of them has been uplifting and worth my time to learn about another human’s experience. I have immensely enjoyed reading other people’s pain. This sounds demented and unhinged. But, understanding the human experience is one of the reasons we read, and write, and it has reminded me why I wanted to share my story in the first place.

Back in 2022 I read Phosphorescence by Julia Baird, and The Space Between the Stars by Indira Naidoo. These two books planted the desire to craft my experience into something from which other people could take something positive.

This month, I read Lost In Transition by Paria Hassouri, about her journey with her trans daughter and I cried within the first minute, overwhelmed with feelings of validation and understanding. Suddenly Single at Sixty by Jo Peck is a different story to my own, I was widowed at 41, but there were many similar feelings. Jo was understandably angry because her husband left her for a younger woman. I’ve been angry too, for being abandoned and left to fend for myself. But, like Jo, there was a silver lining to my trauma.

I read my dear friend Christine Newell’ wrote a’s beautiful new memoir, Five Seasons in Seoul, about her experience of running away from tragedy and grief to the other side of the world. Of course she couldn’t outrun it, and instead had to succumb to the post traumatic growth that is the essence of all of the memoirs I have enjoyed.

Here is a list of all the other memoirs I’ve read in the last six weeks, and every one of them has made an impact:

In Love by Amy Bloom—Switzerland assisted dying story
Found, Wanting by Natasha Sholl—partner died in bed next to her
Neon Pilgrim by Lisa Dempster—woman’s journey walking the hero michi (88 temple pilgrimage in Shikoku)
It’s A Shame About Ray by Jonathon Seidler—although about his dad’s suicide, this book id darkly funny
Unfinished Woman by Robyn Davidson—her amazing life outside of writing Tracks, and her mother’s suicide
Wasted by Elspeth Muir—the suicide or drunken accidental drowning of her brother

Memoirs I would recommend that I’ve read previously:

Because I’m Not Myself, You See by Ariane Beeston
Sociopath by Patric Gagne
The Empathy Exams byLeslie Jamison
Educated by Tara Westover
One Italian Summer by Pip Williams
Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here by Heather Rose
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
The Bookshop Woman by Nanako Hanada
Things My Son Needs To Know About the World by Fredrik Backman
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
Down and Out in Paris and London
A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux
Paris or Die by Jayne Tuttle
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion—so good I’ve read it twice, and will read it again
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
Happening by Annie Ernaux
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The Only Gaijin in the Village by Iain Maloney