Carolyn Roy-Bornstein is a physician, a writer and a mom. Her dramatic memoir Crash comes out in a few short weeks. Reading her post, made me realize that as tricky as publicizing one's fiction may be... a memoir comes with a host of thornier questions. Thank you for sharing this, Carolyn. --Sarah P.
I’ve had my “what
am I doing?” moments as a writer. Writing my first book, my confidence waxed
and waned without rhyme or reason. One minute I would believe in the importance
of my memoir: I’m sharing my family’s experience of my son’s accident and
subsequent traumatic brain injury. Educating the public about the dangers of
underage drinking and drunk driving. Enlightening the masses about the trauma
of hidden wounds. The next moment, I’m asking myself ‘Who am I kidding? Who will
want to read this?’
Even as I secured
an agent (or “achieved representation” as I’ve learned to say) and then landed
a book deal, the doubts still lurked at the edges of my consciousness, ready to
bring me to my knees. What if my editor rejected the final manuscript? What if
she decided I can’t write after all? What if nobody buys my book?
But I never
thought I’d have one of my “what am I doing” moments while being interviewed
for my first profile in a glossy magazine.
Journalist Katie Lovett
knocked at my door at exactly the appointed hour one unseasonably warm February
day. She wore a short hot pink wool coat, a red Valentine pinned to her lapel.
She looked astonishingly young, though I knew from reading her bio on-line that
she had been at her current position for more than five years. She snapped her
head up sharply when I opened the door, a tentative half-smile on her face. Was
this the proper expression to present to a woman who has written a memoir of
tragedy?
I invited her in,
offered her tea. We settled onto the couch, sipping our Constant Comments. She kept
thanking me for allowing her into my home and sharing my story. I kept assuring
her that the pleasure was all mine. I wanted to tell my story. That’s why I had
written a memoir after all.
Then the
questions began. They started innocently enough. Benignly. Chronologically.
“Where were you
when you learned that your son had been hit by a drunk driver?” And then, “Who was
the person who told you?”
I recounted for
her the events of that night. I elaborated with details about my son’s
relationship with his girlfriend, the one killed in the crash.
But as the
questions kept coming:--“How is Neil now?” “What is he doing?” “Does he need
any extra academic help at school?”—I felt the familiar “what am I doing?”
question bubbling up in my insides. Only now the question had morphed into a
stomach-churning no-turning-back “what
have I done?”
Neil has
supported me throughout the writing of this memoir. He read and approved every
word. Whenever I gave him a chapter of the book to read, I always cautioned him,
“Now if you’re uncomfortable with this being out there, I won’t publish it.”
Neil has always known he has had total veto power over any of my work that
deals with the crash. Each time, he reads it and assures me, “No. You can
publish that.”
But I still
worried that maybe he doesn’t understand what it all means. I’ve published
stories about him before for sure, but in specialized publications—medical
journals for doctors like me and literary magazines geared towards mothers who
write. I worried that once the book was out, read by neighbors and friends, that
things would be different. That Neil would have second thoughts about being the
subject of my memoir.
Now as I faced
Katie Lovett’s seemingly endless barrage of questions, I had another thought.
Maybe it’s me who doesn’t understand what it all means. Maybe I’m the one who’s
not ready for all this to be happening. Maybe I’ve been so busy worrying about
protecting Neil that I ended up kidding myself. Of course I thought long and
hard before embarking on writing this memoir. But I thought I had it under control.
I had an important story to tell. Not just about traumatic brain injury and drunk
driving, but also about psychological wounds that are unapparent, the non-linear nature of recovery after
trauma, and the disenfranchisement of certain types of grief. Of course I
realized I would be opening up my family’s story to the world. But I realized
it on an intellectual level. Knowing something in your head and knowing it with your gut are two very
different things. And now here was a reporter. In my home. On my sofa. Delving
deeply into my life. A life that I have readily offered up to the world.
Julia Fox
Garrison, a young stroke survivor who wrote a wonderful memoir called Don’t Leave me this Way, read an
advanced copy of my book and loved it.
“Now you are like
me, an open book,” she told me.
And so I am. I realize this now on a deep and abstruse level, a level unknown to me as I sat scrawling words longhand in spiral-bound books, then typing them into ten-point Courier font at my computer. I know it now keenly, as I did not know it then, when I hung over Neil’s shoulder as he read, awaiting his approval, and worrying that he was not fully aware of where this all would lead. I realize this now concretely, tangibly, as I sit on this sofa staring into the fresh inquisitive face. I am an open book.
You can find Carolyn Roy-Bornstein on her website or on Twitter @CRoyBo.
