Writers Should Never Be Packaged, Peddled, and Productized
The success of our art should be what we create, not how we preen and perform on social media.
Years ago, I sat in an airport holding a newspaper in my hand. Blubbering my way into a corner. It was a scathing review of my book and while I’m open to constructive criticism, the essay felt more like an indictment of my character. A vivisection of the choices I made instead of the story I wrote about those choices.
This was in 2008, a time when you still couldn’t say you didn’t love your mother. No one in the right mind would title a memoir wishing their mother dead and have it launch on the bestseller lists. Back then, mothers were still sacrosanct and I’d written a story of my life growing up her and then letting her go. I’d written the line: you make it impossible for me to love you because it was the last words I said to my mother.
The review boiled down to: this would’ve been a better book had you loved your mother more. It was the first time it occurred to me that my work wasn’t the product — no, no, I was equally held up to scrutiny. The writer no longer has the luxury of being distinguished from the work she creates. They are bonded in some sick siamese formulation that I still can’t manage to understand.
