Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Grrrr followup question
And now I’m curious about memoirs and eager to read someone with more insight and honesty than Frank McCourt. Any suggestions?
I haven’t read many autobiographies. Bette Davis, Benvenuto Cellini, that’s about it (how’s that for a pair?) I think I can sling the memoirist BS fairly well, but I’m sure I have a lot to learn from the masters.
So . . . who are the masters?
D.
← Grrrrr
masters of the memoirs…
Billy Bob Thornton’s “slingblade memoirs: Reckon you got sum biscuits.”
Jim Carey’s “Ode to the Alllrighty Then.”
and…
Chewbacca’s “WWWWRRRRRR”
Try Jackie Lydon’s The Daughter of the Queen of Sheba (it’s about her mother’s manic depression and her quite honest anger at her mother and guilt that she’s angry at her) or Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genuis (which my cousin said she didn’t like because she thought the title would be true. Oh, puleese.) There are some great bits about Berkeley and Oakland in there. I cannot look at the camphor trees any more with out hearing in my head his description of “Berkeley’s broccoli trees” dotting the hills.
Those are the two which leap to my mind.
Stephen King’s On Writing is probably the closest I’ve come to reading an autobiography. Its subtitle, “A memoir of the craft”, is pretty accurate. It’s about three-quarters autobiography, one-quarter writing advice. Plus it’s a short book, so you can probably zip through it in just a few hours.
Well, I really enjoyed Richard E. Grant’s With Nails. It shows what it’s like behind the scenes, who’s real and who’s completely fake (the bits where he meets Madonna are wonderful)and he’s just such a likable guy – in the book. I think in real life he’s something of a twat from what I’ve seen – but the book is great! I didn’t know he’d done another one, so I’ll have to pick that up for me. Good luck!!
Thanks for the interesting suggestions, folks. The Jackie Lydon book sounds especially intriguing — a book written by someone with a nutty mother. Now, I wonder why that would interest me?
Emma Goldman’s autobiography (2-volumes) can be dry in places, but by and large I enjoyed it. It also serves as an excellent reminder that the history of the Left in the US is a lot wider, richer, and deeper than the typical vague mentions of the importance of the labor movement that one gets in most general history texts. (YMMV: I probably wouldn’t recommend it to someone who wasn’t already interested in history and/or politics.)
Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire is beautiful. Go. Buy. Read.
Stuff I read ages (like, decades) ago: I remember Robert Graves’ Farewell to All That as being a great read. Also, both Heinlein and Asimov both wrote very good memoir-ish pieces that can be found in some of their collected short works. Heinlein, for instance, wrote some very insightful (and ultimately, quite prescient) pieces on the USSR & the Cold War based on his travels to the Soviet Union.
At first I was a bit scared off of reading Jackie Lydon’s book, because my mother’s a touch unhinged too, but I found it to be engrossing.
Speaking of weird mothers, I just posted my most recent dream about mine on my blog. (I’m so ready to ship her and my brother off for a meeting with Dr. Phil. They don’t need therapy, and that’s good, because he doesn’t provide it really, but boy they could use a slap upside the head! Agh.)
Dr. Phil? Really? Do you hate them that much?
Static: thanks for the recs!
For Memoirs I liked A Year in Provence and the other books in that trilogy. It’s about a UK guy moving to Provence. Travel, culture, food, my faves.
I also liked Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country which is probably more travel humor than memoir, but it was very well done.
Frank McCourt is not my favorite. Too depressing.
M
They seriously need a reality check. And he’s very good at that. (Follow-up AFTER you’ve been dented inthe head, perhaps not so much.) But I’d love to witness the “What were you thinking?” moment.
Not exactly a memoir, and someone will probably slap me for this, but I’ve always been partial ot Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek…
I’ll have to poke through my bookshelves for other things. The graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby comes to mind…
“Why?” he asks, having Googled the author and title and seen nothing obviously meriting slappage.
‘kay folks, this weekend I make a virtual Barnes and Noble run. Woo-hoo!
Doug, I’ll add in my favorites….
Anything by MFK Fisher, but particularly her earlier work…life, food, survival, food.
And if you can find it
John Kenneth Galbraith An ambassador’s journal.