Wendy Lawless’s first memoir, Chanel Bonfire, focused on her unconventional upbringing by an emotionally abusive, alcoholic mother. In Heart of Glass: A Memoir, she revisits her 20s.
Was your second memoir easier to write?
Much more difficult. My childhood was crazy and vivid, like a big nutty movie, and that was how I wrote Chanel Bonfire—like a movie in my head. My 20s were painful and I was depressed. I don’t remember a lot so I had to dig more. Luckily, I kept journals and wrote letters that I borrowed back from friends.
How did the sequel come about?
I was pitching either a novel or a sequel and I was hoping the publisher would go with the novel, but it went with the sequel. I thought, “Okay, I have to write another book about me!”
How was revisiting 1980s New York?
The New York of my childhood and young adulthood no longer exists. My city is gone, in the words of Chrissie Hynde. It was fun to remember all the squalor and danger in Alphabet City back when I was young and totally confused, lost and wandering around.
Are you primarily an actress or writer?
I was nominally successful as an actress on and off Broadway and in regional theater. I moved to California in l995 with my baby son and my husband. I did commercials and television for a few years and then I sort of fell out of love with it. Then my daughter came along. When I turned 40, I started writing. An essay that was rejected all over town basically became the foundation for [em]Chanel Bonfire[/em]. I actually had a job at Whole Foods lined up when my agent called and said he’d sold the book to Gallery. It was like this miracle, I had a second career at 50.
How did you choose the title?
I believe in the power of theater and rock ’n’ roll to transform your life. I wanted it to be a song from that time period, and “Heart of Glass” was perfect.
This sort of memoir can be quite depressing, yet there’s a lot of humor in your writing.
I read a lot of memoirs before I wrote mine and many are really great, but for the most part they are very sad. It was a huge, conscious choice to make my books funny. I wanted Chanel to be like Eloise meets Running with Scissors.
What gave you the courage to delve into your difficult youth?
The truth really can’t hurt you; it’s lying or shoving it under the rug and pretending that gets you in trouble. I’m not particularly proud of myself at certain moments in the past, but they’re part of who I am. I appreciate my incredibly boring life now; I was such a drama queen in my 20s!
