Dear Summer -- You are SOOOOOO completely speakin' my language! As a guy who's spent most of his 66 years on Earth recounting stories of horrors both real and imaginary, I've always considered it my job to understand the monster in myself, and in each and everyone.
Horror fiction is the fiction of worst-case scenarios, in which we can frankly address the damage. (Rod Serling created THE TWILIGHT ZONE as a way to get around network censors, because he could put truth in the words of a ghost or an alien that a regular person would be not be allowed to share in between commercials for mouth wash and Ovaltine.)
So when it comes to memoir, are we supposed to shave off the shadows, render ourselves as smiley-face emojis? And then be surprised when the "return of the repressed" takes the form of a fucking heart attack?
I'm as stoic as the next guy who is also a stoic when it comes to dumping my trauma on any poor stranger who haplessly asks, "And how are YOU doing today?" But when it comes to the work, EVERY day is "Take Your Monster To Work Day". I may not give them the megaphone. But I sure as shit don't leave 'em stuck in the car with the windows rolled up.
So THANK YOU for your beautiful piece! I am so glad we stumbled across each other here in Substackland, and will be gleefully reading your thoughts from this point onward. You are awesome.
YOU are awesome! What a beautiful response! So many things I want to quote here, especially “ when it comes to the work, EVERY day is take your monster to work day. I may not give them the megaphone. But I sure as shit don’t leave them stuck in the car with the windows rolled up.” YASSS!
THIS. Their monsters have not been held, and so they cannot hold others’, so they turn to other means (drugs, alc, exercise, work, etc) to quell and quash them.
Dear Tansie and Summer (and anyone else!) -- This sub-thread makes me desperately want to share the single best story I've ever seen about facing (and embracing) your monster. It is, believe it or not, an episode of the goofy streaming horror series CREEPSHOW. Season 4, episode 1. The name of the story is "20 Minutes With Cassandra". And it is breathtaking in its empathy, its emotional and psychological accuracy, its sweet combination of laugh-out-loud humor from a deep deep DEEP well of sorrow. Also: AWESOME MONSTER!!! In many ways, it was the best, most transcendent, and certainly most SURPRISINGLY WELCOME thing I saw last year. The IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE of horror. (Streaming on Shudder, AMC+, or Amazon Prime.)
That's amazing. Is it a remake of the old movie? My friend and writing partner writes in her memoir-in-progress about how the 1980s CREEPSHOW helped her discover her inner wolf. Now I need to watch it!
Nope! It's a series inspired by the movie (a personal fave as well!). And though it lacks Stephen King and George Romero (who wrote and directed the original, respectively), it's done at least a dozen stories over the past four seasons that really rang the bell for me. [Full disclosure: my friend Dori Miller and I wrote an episode in Season One called "Times Is Tough in Musky Holler", which addresses the monster in more sociopolitically visceral terms. And it turned out pretty good, if you like that sort of thing!]
But "20 Minutes With Cassandra" is something else again. It's just SUCH a piece of rarified, soulful, sincerely monstrous beauty. Since it came out last October, I've shown it to at least a dozen friends, all of whom happily joined me in the "Holy shit! That was AMAZING!" camp.
Lemme know if you check it out! I'm dyin' to hear if you agree!
I especially like this line: "It’s so we can catalyze change." I think the "we" in here can be personal and communal. When I think of the great memoirs I've read, the ones that have resonated with me, there is always part of the writer's struggle (and memoir would not exist without struggle) that I find in myself. It doesn't have to be the same situation, it only has to arouse the same set of feelings.
I think a great memoir is cathartic: for both the writer an reader.
love this Summer. i follow Bayo (he makes my head spin in a good way and yes to the monsters!) have read some of Melissa's work including "Girlhood" (fabulous). so agree with this wisdom you have shared and have ponder much of it myself.
i do believe there is a risk in our western culture of focusing so much on the individual "healing" and naval gazing (and i have done my fair share) that we forget we are communal beings...if that makes sense. our psychological modalities are based on and biased by western cultural, which are inherently patriarchal.
anyway, just riffing off the top of my head. appreciate how close your family was to "the bomb" and threaded through your family in ways still being felt today.
I am so grateful to have discovered your Substack! So up my alley.
Writing was my first trauma processing method. Although I didn't know it at the time, I had no interest in becoming a 'writer' except for the craft of it. But the countless hours poring over the minute details of how I carried the stories--before I felt safe enough to explore it within my own body-- helped me see my lived experience more clearly.
Other healing modalities became more prevalent, more helpful: somatic therapy, psychedelics, men's work. After years, the heavy fog of trauma finally began to lift form my every day (and it had become clear that trauma memoirs written by White men had fallen out of style), I retired from ever trying to become a writer. Thank the gods.
Now I work with men in similar healing contexts as I found so helpful. For me, the core of the work is in meeting and befriending the monsters. Bayo has been really inspiring - his interview on the Emerald podcast threw a beautiful wrench into my gears. Individual psychology and clinical methods capture so little of the full frame of things.
That’s amazing. You sound so inspiring! First of all, I hope white male memoirs come back in style again, and they probably will because a lot of white men read! & would like to see their experiences reflected, I imagine. And second maybe if you’re called to it you’ll dabble back in writing. And third thank you for your work with men and all the work you’re doing on yourself so you can help them. I’m a big fan of all those things you listed and fourth (what number are we on now, four?) cannot consume enough of Bayo, so I will definitely check out this podcast, like right now!
This is an absolutely fantastic piece, Summer! I’m writing a memoir and in doing this, I’m not just confronting the monster that caused trauma but also I have consider the monster plus part of myself. I have to face my weaknesses, limitations, and flaws; my own complicity in letting trauma continue. And Arthur Brooks…not a fan of this man. He promoted all of this research on “happiness,” ok, sure, but as I’ve written on Substack, I think happiness is not what we should be striving for. We should strive for joy. So maybe writing about ourselves doesn’t bring much happiness because it’s hard to face those monsters. But I believe it will bring us joy as we resolve and heal our trauma through telling our stories.
YES! I am shouting this in my seat! And friends, who are not writers, but just readers, tell me that the best memoirs for them are the ones in which the narrator really does confront her demons and lets it all out on the page. So more power to you and sending you a virtual high five across the substackverse.
I prefer to see all of these glimpses into human interaction at its most tragic moments as opportunities to heal ourselves as a species. Drawing a reader into a memorable emotion can allow us to forgive a particular person for her or his weakness, and go on to forgive at grander levels, including ourselves. The poolside image is so powerful. It could be a tarot card!
"In this way, memoir writing can reframe the narrative and thereby alchemize shame into empowerment and a sense of agency." -- Absolutely! I'm writing a serialized memoir about my former life as an Evangelical, and am finding that speaking the silence about what l experienced is transformative for me and my readers seem to appreciate it as well. This is a great post, thank you, Summer! (Also, as a side note, my dad worked on the Manhattan project -- he was in Oak Ridge - l grew up in the shadow of all that, with a bomb shelter in my basement, watched as he tried to come to terms with the "secret government project" he signed on for as a young man, without knowing what it was.)
WOW, that’s crazy! So he signed on for the project without even realizing what it was? My goodness. And I’m so glad you are writing your memoir and alchemizing your experience which I imagine must’ve been extremely difficult. I’m doing the same thing right now with an abusive marriage I lived through, working out the demons through writing. I’ve done lots of therapy and writing this memoir and writing in general is the best therapy ever. And it’s free. Sending hugs.
Every part of me breathed’yes’ when I read this. I’ve been of the mind that sharing about our monsters can be done, maybe not every monster, but maybe the ones that can help others. (Sobriety is one of mine-I’ve lost people over it but, maybe talking about it can help someone.) There is power in the collective, and maybe, an avenue where we can deepen relationships with people
For Christmas my brother got my mom a subscription to a service that asks her questions about herself, Some chosen by us her children and others chosen by the site to be turned into a book in a year. It's a different way to write a memoir, and it gives answers to the questions that the people around them want to know.
My mother isn't a creative type. She wouldn't write a book about herself, and yet I think that her story is something that ought to be shared. We often get the stories of the creative types and less so the people like my mother that battle the IRS and try to save people from their financial Titanics, the disasters that they steered themselves into.
If a person is only focused on themselves, I think "No" is the answer to a memoir. That person isn't helping themself or inspiring others. But if they're sharing and shaping who they are and the scene that they're part of it's much better. I read Dave Grohl's the storyteller and thoroughly enjoyed it. But the best parts weren't Dave talking about himself. They were the parts where he shared the love of his craft and the people around who inspired him.
Love this! And this quote: Refusing] to write your story can make you into a monster. Or perhaps more accurately, we are already monsters. And to deny the monstrous is to deny its beauty, its meaning, its necessary devastation.” - Melissa Febos
This is so validating as I just released an autobiographical fiction. Since you are a mom- not sure of age of your kids now- but Ruth Manning-Sanders ‘Book of Monsters’ is wonderful.🌿🌈🦋
Congratulations on the release of your book! What’s the name what’s it about? Also, I should look into the book you mention. My kids are 9 & 12, still monsters! Ha!
What a beautiful post, and so timely! I feel like we’re living that picture of the women at the pool smiling and chatting with the atomic bomb detonating in the background. Thanks for this great writing and beautiful images too.
i am writing a memoir. it's been an amazing, healing process. and i hope someday it gets out in the world. in the meantime i'm getting a lot out of the process. i couldn't tell my story for 20+ years and being able to is everything.
Hi Summer, fellow sensitive, 80’s child here, brought up be hard-working, loving-but-not-great-at-actually-seeing-me-or-expressing // dealing-with-intense-emotions - parents, ha! Anyway, the massive German study about suppressing your feelings makes you ill is … p??? Can I have the details of that study so I can look it up please. Thanks 🙏🐁
Thanks so much, Mike! And if you haven’t already, check out the comments. They could be their own beautiful essay!
Dear Summer -- You are SOOOOOO completely speakin' my language! As a guy who's spent most of his 66 years on Earth recounting stories of horrors both real and imaginary, I've always considered it my job to understand the monster in myself, and in each and everyone.
Horror fiction is the fiction of worst-case scenarios, in which we can frankly address the damage. (Rod Serling created THE TWILIGHT ZONE as a way to get around network censors, because he could put truth in the words of a ghost or an alien that a regular person would be not be allowed to share in between commercials for mouth wash and Ovaltine.)
So when it comes to memoir, are we supposed to shave off the shadows, render ourselves as smiley-face emojis? And then be surprised when the "return of the repressed" takes the form of a fucking heart attack?
I'm as stoic as the next guy who is also a stoic when it comes to dumping my trauma on any poor stranger who haplessly asks, "And how are YOU doing today?" But when it comes to the work, EVERY day is "Take Your Monster To Work Day". I may not give them the megaphone. But I sure as shit don't leave 'em stuck in the car with the windows rolled up.
So THANK YOU for your beautiful piece! I am so glad we stumbled across each other here in Substackland, and will be gleefully reading your thoughts from this point onward. You are awesome.
Yer pal in the trenches,
Skipp
YOU are awesome! What a beautiful response! So many things I want to quote here, especially “ when it comes to the work, EVERY day is take your monster to work day. I may not give them the megaphone. But I sure as shit don’t leave them stuck in the car with the windows rolled up.” YASSS!
YAAAAAAAAY!!!
John, this a beautiful response to a beautiful piece of writing. And *you* are absolutely speaking *my* language too!
Love your language
A great thought provoking article Summer.
I have found so many people can be uncomfortable with a real answer to the question “how are you?” And would much prefer a simple “good” with a smile.
It’s so sad that so many people won’t face their monsters because they don’t feel safe and supported to do so.
THIS. Their monsters have not been held, and so they cannot hold others’, so they turn to other means (drugs, alc, exercise, work, etc) to quell and quash them.
Yes! I’ve seen it with people close to me and it’s so sad
Dear Tansie and Summer (and anyone else!) -- This sub-thread makes me desperately want to share the single best story I've ever seen about facing (and embracing) your monster. It is, believe it or not, an episode of the goofy streaming horror series CREEPSHOW. Season 4, episode 1. The name of the story is "20 Minutes With Cassandra". And it is breathtaking in its empathy, its emotional and psychological accuracy, its sweet combination of laugh-out-loud humor from a deep deep DEEP well of sorrow. Also: AWESOME MONSTER!!! In many ways, it was the best, most transcendent, and certainly most SURPRISINGLY WELCOME thing I saw last year. The IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE of horror. (Streaming on Shudder, AMC+, or Amazon Prime.)
That's amazing. Is it a remake of the old movie? My friend and writing partner writes in her memoir-in-progress about how the 1980s CREEPSHOW helped her discover her inner wolf. Now I need to watch it!
Nope! It's a series inspired by the movie (a personal fave as well!). And though it lacks Stephen King and George Romero (who wrote and directed the original, respectively), it's done at least a dozen stories over the past four seasons that really rang the bell for me. [Full disclosure: my friend Dori Miller and I wrote an episode in Season One called "Times Is Tough in Musky Holler", which addresses the monster in more sociopolitically visceral terms. And it turned out pretty good, if you like that sort of thing!]
But "20 Minutes With Cassandra" is something else again. It's just SUCH a piece of rarified, soulful, sincerely monstrous beauty. Since it came out last October, I've shown it to at least a dozen friends, all of whom happily joined me in the "Holy shit! That was AMAZING!" camp.
Lemme know if you check it out! I'm dyin' to hear if you agree!
That's awesome! And you wrote for it, too, holla!
First off, great writing. So clean and fluid.
I especially like this line: "It’s so we can catalyze change." I think the "we" in here can be personal and communal. When I think of the great memoirs I've read, the ones that have resonated with me, there is always part of the writer's struggle (and memoir would not exist without struggle) that I find in myself. It doesn't have to be the same situation, it only has to arouse the same set of feelings.
I think a great memoir is cathartic: for both the writer an reader.
So many yeses! Thank you for this!
love this Summer. i follow Bayo (he makes my head spin in a good way and yes to the monsters!) have read some of Melissa's work including "Girlhood" (fabulous). so agree with this wisdom you have shared and have ponder much of it myself.
i do believe there is a risk in our western culture of focusing so much on the individual "healing" and naval gazing (and i have done my fair share) that we forget we are communal beings...if that makes sense. our psychological modalities are based on and biased by western cultural, which are inherently patriarchal.
anyway, just riffing off the top of my head. appreciate how close your family was to "the bomb" and threaded through your family in ways still being felt today.
Thank you for this. Such a good reminder that the healing really does need to be in the collective. Thank you, Anne! 🙏 💕
I am so grateful to have discovered your Substack! So up my alley.
Writing was my first trauma processing method. Although I didn't know it at the time, I had no interest in becoming a 'writer' except for the craft of it. But the countless hours poring over the minute details of how I carried the stories--before I felt safe enough to explore it within my own body-- helped me see my lived experience more clearly.
Other healing modalities became more prevalent, more helpful: somatic therapy, psychedelics, men's work. After years, the heavy fog of trauma finally began to lift form my every day (and it had become clear that trauma memoirs written by White men had fallen out of style), I retired from ever trying to become a writer. Thank the gods.
Now I work with men in similar healing contexts as I found so helpful. For me, the core of the work is in meeting and befriending the monsters. Bayo has been really inspiring - his interview on the Emerald podcast threw a beautiful wrench into my gears. Individual psychology and clinical methods capture so little of the full frame of things.
That’s amazing. You sound so inspiring! First of all, I hope white male memoirs come back in style again, and they probably will because a lot of white men read! & would like to see their experiences reflected, I imagine. And second maybe if you’re called to it you’ll dabble back in writing. And third thank you for your work with men and all the work you’re doing on yourself so you can help them. I’m a big fan of all those things you listed and fourth (what number are we on now, four?) cannot consume enough of Bayo, so I will definitely check out this podcast, like right now!
Thanks for your kind words. I write still, just have an easier relationship to it.
The Emerald episode with Bayo is called The Revolution Will Not be Psychologized, Part II. The first part is great, too :)
love that title!
This is an absolutely fantastic piece, Summer! I’m writing a memoir and in doing this, I’m not just confronting the monster that caused trauma but also I have consider the monster plus part of myself. I have to face my weaknesses, limitations, and flaws; my own complicity in letting trauma continue. And Arthur Brooks…not a fan of this man. He promoted all of this research on “happiness,” ok, sure, but as I’ve written on Substack, I think happiness is not what we should be striving for. We should strive for joy. So maybe writing about ourselves doesn’t bring much happiness because it’s hard to face those monsters. But I believe it will bring us joy as we resolve and heal our trauma through telling our stories.
YES! I am shouting this in my seat! And friends, who are not writers, but just readers, tell me that the best memoirs for them are the ones in which the narrator really does confront her demons and lets it all out on the page. So more power to you and sending you a virtual high five across the substackverse.
I prefer to see all of these glimpses into human interaction at its most tragic moments as opportunities to heal ourselves as a species. Drawing a reader into a memorable emotion can allow us to forgive a particular person for her or his weakness, and go on to forgive at grander levels, including ourselves. The poolside image is so powerful. It could be a tarot card!
Oh my gosh, yes! This reminds me how Alok Menon talks about growing a garden from the wound. Yes to everything you said!
Thanks so much for this. I too am a fan of Akomolafe and Febos.
Love them! You are so welcome 💕
"In this way, memoir writing can reframe the narrative and thereby alchemize shame into empowerment and a sense of agency." -- Absolutely! I'm writing a serialized memoir about my former life as an Evangelical, and am finding that speaking the silence about what l experienced is transformative for me and my readers seem to appreciate it as well. This is a great post, thank you, Summer! (Also, as a side note, my dad worked on the Manhattan project -- he was in Oak Ridge - l grew up in the shadow of all that, with a bomb shelter in my basement, watched as he tried to come to terms with the "secret government project" he signed on for as a young man, without knowing what it was.)
WOW, that’s crazy! So he signed on for the project without even realizing what it was? My goodness. And I’m so glad you are writing your memoir and alchemizing your experience which I imagine must’ve been extremely difficult. I’m doing the same thing right now with an abusive marriage I lived through, working out the demons through writing. I’ve done lots of therapy and writing this memoir and writing in general is the best therapy ever. And it’s free. Sending hugs.
Every part of me breathed’yes’ when I read this. I’ve been of the mind that sharing about our monsters can be done, maybe not every monster, but maybe the ones that can help others. (Sobriety is one of mine-I’ve lost people over it but, maybe talking about it can help someone.) There is power in the collective, and maybe, an avenue where we can deepen relationships with people
💯 thank you
For Christmas my brother got my mom a subscription to a service that asks her questions about herself, Some chosen by us her children and others chosen by the site to be turned into a book in a year. It's a different way to write a memoir, and it gives answers to the questions that the people around them want to know.
My mother isn't a creative type. She wouldn't write a book about herself, and yet I think that her story is something that ought to be shared. We often get the stories of the creative types and less so the people like my mother that battle the IRS and try to save people from their financial Titanics, the disasters that they steered themselves into.
If a person is only focused on themselves, I think "No" is the answer to a memoir. That person isn't helping themself or inspiring others. But if they're sharing and shaping who they are and the scene that they're part of it's much better. I read Dave Grohl's the storyteller and thoroughly enjoyed it. But the best parts weren't Dave talking about himself. They were the parts where he shared the love of his craft and the people around who inspired him.
That’s very helpful insight! And I love that programs like the one your mother is using exist, and that she can write her story for posterity!
Love this! And this quote: Refusing] to write your story can make you into a monster. Or perhaps more accurately, we are already monsters. And to deny the monstrous is to deny its beauty, its meaning, its necessary devastation.” - Melissa Febos
This is so validating as I just released an autobiographical fiction. Since you are a mom- not sure of age of your kids now- but Ruth Manning-Sanders ‘Book of Monsters’ is wonderful.🌿🌈🦋
Congratulations on the release of your book! What’s the name what’s it about? Also, I should look into the book you mention. My kids are 9 & 12, still monsters! Ha!
I think you’d like it, if not your children!
My book:
https://www.sallyleestewartauthor.com/
What a beautiful post, and so timely! I feel like we’re living that picture of the women at the pool smiling and chatting with the atomic bomb detonating in the background. Thanks for this great writing and beautiful images too.
100 million per cent. Thanks, Tim. <3
i am writing a memoir. it's been an amazing, healing process. and i hope someday it gets out in the world. in the meantime i'm getting a lot out of the process. i couldn't tell my story for 20+ years and being able to is everything.
That is so wonderful to hear. For me writing my memoir is better therapy than talk therapy or forest bathing. 💗 xo
Hi Summer, fellow sensitive, 80’s child here, brought up be hard-working, loving-but-not-great-at-actually-seeing-me-or-expressing // dealing-with-intense-emotions - parents, ha! Anyway, the massive German study about suppressing your feelings makes you ill is … p??? Can I have the details of that study so I can look it up please. Thanks 🙏🐁
Yes!!! https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna50629972 I’m sorry I didn’t link to it!
And I’m happy to meet a fellow HSP Gen-Xer!