Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma

Brooks chose a difficult story to tell in her first memoir—the death of her father from AIDS in 1995—and grappled with the question of how to do justice to such personal and knotty material in a writing genre often dismissed by others. She hit upon the idea of interviewing eminent memoirists, including Sue William Silverman, Andre Dubus III, Jessica Handler, Edwidge Danticat, and Richard Hoffman. Her goal was to know how each had survived the experience of writing about thorny parts of their lives. The result of her investigation is inconsistent, combining the interviewees’ professional advice and personal recollection with Brooks’s own voice to muddled effect. When the book focuses on the established authors, it unearths gems of insight, especially about the natures of truth, memory, subjectivity, and fact, and about what memoirs can mean to readers. And it leaves no doubt about the strength required to confront old ghosts. However, when Brooks directs the focus toward herself, the whole enterprise threatens to turn mawkish. Students of memoir writing will surely be reassured by the journeys revealed here, and fans of the authors may enjoy spending more time with them, though the book is less illuminating than it could have been. [em](Feb.) [/em]