Whose story is it? Consent, shame, truth.
I told a story of a mother who abused (via neglect and endangering) her child without getting the child’s consent. In the same book, I disclosed some embarrassing, private things about a man who didn’t consent to having that disclosed either. I also told a story about a group of vulnerable often marginalized people, none of whom also gave consent.
I didn’t think to ask it.
This was also in the olden days when we didn’t ask things like that—I’m not sure what the process would look like today, if I would be allowed to write about a baby who couldn’t give consent, or get a consent from the baby’s father (I was the baby’s mother, the abuser). I don’t know. All I knew was that I was writing my truth, my story—not a story of baby abuse but a story of my addiction. The baby was unfortunate to be born to a mother who experienced a severe trauma during her pregnancy (not in the book, and no, I probably won’t talk about it for a while, maybe never) (maybe when the person is no longer here), and a serious postpartum. A mother who was very isolated, who needed a lot more help that she got. People tried, of course, to help (my sister, my partner at the time, some friends) but this wasn’t a “it takes a village to raise a child” situation. In any case. Those sound like excuses for my bad behaviour (drinking while trying to care for the said child—a child I loved more than anything in the world… love).
During my book tour, many people asked me: “How do you think your son will feel when he reads the book?” My answer ranged from, “I hope he grows up to be someone with compassion and empathy and an understanding of complex ideas,” to “How would I even know?” (or in rage, I once said, “I don’t plan on raising a simpleton”).
Today, I believe that he will be angry with me. Were he to read it now, especially as he deals with puberty, and some complicated feelings of resentment, having grown up with a mother who has mental illness, he would be upset. I am preparing for that tough conversation. Have been preparing for it for 10 years. Completely unprepared. Or I don’t know, maybe he’ll finally understand what happen and that will help him forgive. I don’t know.
He might also ask me why I wrote about him without his consent given how that is very much a topic when writing memoir these days. But, had I waited for him to be old enough to give consent, I might’ve never written this book, a book that pissed many people off but also allegedly helped many as well.
I did originally write it as fiction. With fiction you can say anything! (Ha ha ha) So I could’ve written about this neglectful, drunk mother and wash my hands off any responsibility. But I was persuaded by those close to me and by my agent at the time to turn the book into a memoir. And I’m very glad I did that. I couldn’t hide under the “fiction” umbrella and I had to accept and embrace all that came with having this book released—good, bad, more bad, more good.
I recently read Ken Whyte’s post about the Leah McLaren situation (I will not say anything about what I think about all of that because the last thing McLaren needs is a child abuser supporting her or, alternatively, scolding her in public and I don’t known Zoe Greenberg; I just think a lot of people have been in a lot of pain and a publisher made possibly a big booboo).
In his post, Whyte suggests that “If an author wants to present events from decades past as fully realized, novelistic scenes with intricate detail and polished dialogue, isn’t the novel a better choice?
If an author can imagine a more powerful narrative or higher truth than can be attained through strict fidelity to observable reality, isn’t that why we invented fiction?”
Yes! Perhaps that is the better choice, except, people will take issue with fiction as well. I recently wrote about a threat of a lawsuit from a begrudged ex over my last novel, and this wasn’t the first time I got in trouble for writing fiction.
Fiction is perhaps even more of a dangerous territory (than memoir) because you can really exaggerate in that mf, you can write just about anything, you know call a character of very specifically and recognizably described fictional ex-wife an abuser, an equally vividly described character of a husband a drunk gambler, a brother conniving and judgemental, a child a little sociopath, a neighbour a rapist.
Not only that, you can “steal” someone’s story and appropriate it, include it in your fiction, a problematic story, one that could possibly be re-traumatizing to a reader who could recognize themselves in the story—by coincidence or not.
Have I done that or do I just prefer to have everyone think that horrible things that happen to my female characters just happened to me? Because, also, there’s that other thing, you know, where people don’t believe a woman writer cannot possibly come up with an original idea and not write about her own experiences; even if she tries fiction, the poor thing, she ends up with a thinly vailed “Victim Narrative” (what we often call women’s writing). Especially if she writes about Women’s Issues (which is what most women writing is; for men, this writing activity is simply called Writing). (Although lately my last book as been—even gushily—referred to be a part of a new genre called “Books about Messy Women”) (Are Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, and all those other unhappy boys, did they write “Books About Messy Men” or did they just write Literature?)
Most of my fictional (and not) characters have a bad time and are often not nice people. They are funny though and dark and they do terrible things to each other but there’s usually a happy, though complicated ending. Usually a hopeful ending.
In my first novel, the terrible but charming fuccboi uses women for his pleasure (think American Psycho lite) and shockingly that one got slotted with CadLit (not CanLit) until people found out a woman wrote it (I didn’t write it under a pseudonym but I have a weird name and this was a different audience that I had for Drunk Mom). But then when it was found out a woman wrote, people’s interest shifted to men in my real life, there was suddenly gossip out here about which man in my life is based on Guy, the main character? Could it possibly be my husband at the time who dresses well as my character does and who has had a bit of a reputation, a husband who is a public figure, another writer (and who himself has been accused many times of exploiting people’s lives for fiction?)
Dear readers. This is what artists do. In many ways we exploit. We steal stories. We tell stories for variety of reasons—whether it’s a noble reason or just because it’s fun to tell stories if you have some talent to tell them—but we inadvertently will step on toes, might re-traumatize someone, might take something without consent. I won’t list every author who has done that Joan Didion, who has taken something possibly secret and shameful or forbidden and has written about it without having a permission to do so.
I simply didn’t think I needed to get a permission when writing Drunk Mom and we were still in the Dark Ages then, you know, for those at home, this was during the Rob Ford era and that kind of discourse (there’s a book about him with a very uncomfortable-now title; not sure if this title would make it in 2022).
Writers have the right to tell stories (do we have that right?). Tell their truths or make up shit to illustrate a truth (in fiction, don’t make up shit in memoir), or do a combo of truth and fiction (auto fiction), or whatever. And people close to us do and can take offence and they too will ask if they’ve given you a consent to exploit their own lives like the parasites we are. They will stop speaking to you. They will try to sue. It’s a horrid business, all of it.