Why Would Anyone Want to Read Your Memoir?

We can’t control how others receive our message, but we can control how we tell it

“What’s so special about your life? Es más, why would anyone want to read about it?” was the first thing that came out of my mother-in-law’s mouth one afternoon as we sat drinking loose-leaf mate together at my home in Pittsburgh.

It was August 2017, and I’d just finished telling my suegra about a culinary memoir I was writing. Argentines are known for their candor and my mother-in-law, Graciela, is certainly no exception. But I love her to pieces. While it may not seem like it, it was the best question anyone could have asked me.

Why? ¿Porqué?

I’ve grappled with this same question for months and months. Here’s the truth: I didn’t choose to write my story. It chose me.

It was the summer of 2017. I was on a walk with my older brother and husband in Charleston, South Carolina, one excruciatingly hot and humid July morning. Lost in my thoughts, I found myself walking ahead of them in a sweaty daze. That’s when the floodgates opened, and I received the message I needed to write this book. Here’s how the conversation went in my head:

“Nah…I must have heard you incorrectly.”

“Nope. You heard me — sobremesa. You need to tell your story through the lens of this age-old culinary practice.”

“But, why? Why sobremesa? It doesn’t even have a proper English translation.”

“Because not enough people know about it, and they’re going to need it.”

“A book about table-talk? After the meal is done? I get writing about food, but not its aftermath. You want me to write about splotched napkins and dirty plates?”

“Sí, exactly. Write about the people who cooked for you and the places their food took you. Think back to the sobremesas that stick out in your head and the conversations they conjured. The ones that helped make you the woman you are today.”

“But why?”

“Because it will help you heal.”

“Okay, that I get. I’m the first to admit I’ve got a lot of things I need to work on. So, I should journal then? Why would anyone else want to read about my deeply personal conversations?”

“It’s not about you. It’s about them. Parts of your story are theirs, too.”

“So, maybe, just maybe, it will help them heal too?

[silence]

“Hello? ¿Hola? Are you there, God? It’s me, Josephine…” (Yes, I still carry Judy Blume with me, even after all these years.)

But the connection was lost. I didn’t get a response. The voice in my head was gone. For now. Without a thought, I turned around and looked my husband, Gastón, in the eye. “Gordo, I’m going to write a culinary memoir called Sobremesa. It just came to me. Just now as I was walking.”

Gastón looked back at me, then to my brother, and then back at me. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. His hazel-gold eyes said everything he didn’t.

“Mierda. Here we go again…”

I believe in the power of storytelling to connect with others and make sense of the world around us. It’s what we do at the dinner table. It’s what we do when we put pen to paper, or nowadays, fingers to keyboard. Although writing Sobremesa was at times cathartic, it didn’t come easily. It took me three years to find my story. I’d begin, then, convinced I was full of myself, table the idea. What made me think I could write a book about me. Me? Even I didn’t want to read about me. There were so many things about me that I’d rather forget.

But every time I put Sobremesa to bed (with a sigh of relief), thinking I’d seen the last of it, I’d feel it begin to stir within me. The butterflies wouldn’t leave me alone. They fluttered through my dreams at night until I awakened. That’s when I’d hear the voice in my head beckoning me, “Sobremesa’s story needs to be told.” I’d shoo it away, but it came back, night after night.

“Mierda. Here we go again…”

So, I’d get out the manuscript and try to find its lodestar. Ultimately, I’d find myself lost within a sea of incoherent pages and leave it be. November 2019 was when I walked away from Sobremesa for good, after tearing up 380 ink-marked manuscript pages — one by one. God, that felt good. It was also torturous. We just didn’t understand one another. Chalk it up to irreconcilable differences.

But then March 2020 happened: social distancing, quarantine, lack of work, fear. I was fortunate to be healthy and at home with Gastón and our five beautiful kids. At one point, Gastón started yelling at me with his eyes, This is your chance. Will you just write the damn thing already? I can’t bear to hear one more excuse. I decided to open my MacBook, search for the latest file, and give it one more go.

I didn’t need the voice in my head anymore. I now had Gastón egging me on. “Your story needs to come out. Our story needs to come out. There’s a reason you won’t shut up about it. I’m going to help you.”

And he did. Gastón read and proofread every chapter I wrote and rewrote — three or four times over. I’m convinced it also helped fortify our twenty-year marriage (but that’s a conversation for another time.) Finding my book’s true north during Covid was an absolute blessing. The timing couldn’t have been better.

Now that Sobremesa is out in the world, I’ve been asked by a handful of friends and family, “Are you afraid you shared too much?” To which I answer (or scream, at least in my head), “Claro. Yes. Of course. I’m terrified.” Some of my deepest secrets are written there for all to see — the not-so-flattering ones.

The ones that make me want to crawl into bed and pull the sheets over my head. They’re no longer my secrets. Gastón says putting everything out there is freeing. My publishing team chalks it up to feelings of pre-meditated vulnerability, telling me they too shall pass. But, in the end, if I don’t tell my whole story, how can I truly claim it as mine?

I believe in the power of storytelling to connect with others and make sense of the world around us. It’s what we do at the dinner table. It’s what we do when we put pen to paper, or nowadays, fingers to keyboard.

There’s also the not-so-minor detail that while this is my story, it includes family members, past loves, and good friends who didn’t ask to be a part of it. Still, our lives intersected and lines got blurred. For that reason, I made the conscious effort to try and honor them by sticking to my own experiences, my own thoughts, and needs, and not impose those on others.

While I’d ultimately love to receive a blessing from each and every person who lives within the pages of my book (along with that of my readers), I’ve accepted that may not happen, simply because we all remember things in our own way and on our own terms. We may have the same best friend or relative for that matter, but we all take away different parts of them. The parts that served and touched us most.

I know, in my own life, different people bring out distinct parts of my personality. There are many pieces to the puzzle; there’s no “one way” to describe a person. My memories are, frankly, my own. But they don’t supersede someone else’s. The famous Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar once said, “La memoria es un espejo que miente de manera escandalosa.”

“Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.”

Thus, three years later, I can finally answer my mother-in-law’s question: “Why do I feel my life is worthy of a memoir?”

Here’s why:

We all deserve to tell our own story — or, according to Cortázar, our own lies, and mentiras. No matter our number of Instagram or social-media followers. No matter our net worth or accomplishments. We all deserve the chance to honor the legacy of those we love in our own way. Especially those who are no longer with us but left an indelible mark on our lives.

We all deserve the opportunity to connect with others through our words and experiences. We all deserve the chance to heal and to help others do the same in the process. We can’t control how others receive our message, but we can control how we tell it.

Thanks to Graciela, I now have clarity. The simple truth is: We are all worthy. The stars of my book, in my eyes, are those that continue to guide me on my journey. Even from beyond the grave. Especially from beyond the grave.

I’d like to leave you with one final thought. I wrote Sobremesa as a love letter to my mom, mis abuelos Dorita and Alfredo, my dad, my brothers and sisters, my extended family and friends, especially those we’ve lost along the way, my children, so they’ll one day know where they come from, Gastón, who loves me for me — ugly secrets and all, and the two countries I love with all my heart: Argentina and America.

But most of all, I wrote it for you. Despite all of the present challenges, we are still more connected than ever on a global scale. Maybe you have your own abuela; or maybe you’re also bicultural; perhaps you’re in the midst of a second act (whether it be in love or professionally); or maybe you’re looking to take your seat at the sobremesa table, where there’s always room for one more.

As they say in Argentina: donde comen dos, comen tres.