Member-only story
Writers Should Never Be Packaged, Peddled, and Productized
The success of our art should be what we create, not how we preen and perform on social media.
Years ago, I sat in an airport holding a newspaper in my hand. Blubbering my way into a corner. It was a scathing review of my book and while I’m open to constructive criticism, the essay felt more like an indictment of my character. A vivisection of the choices I made instead of the story I wrote about those choices.
This was in 2008, a time when you still couldn’t say you didn’t love your mother. No one in the right mind would title a memoir wishing their mother dead and have it launch on the bestseller lists. Back then, mothers were still sacrosanct and I’d written a story of my life growing up her and then letting her go. I’d written the line: you make it impossible for me to love you because it was the last words I said to my mother.
The review boiled down to: this would’ve been a better book had you loved your mother more. It was the first time it occurred to me that my work wasn’t the product — no, no, I was equally held up to scrutiny. The writer no longer has the luxury of being distinguished from the work she creates. They are bonded in some sick siamese formulation that I still can’t manage to understand.
