Mankato often is referred to as a strong literary community, filled with talented writers, book clubs, the Good Thunder Reading Series and an esteemed master of fine arts program at Minnesota State University.
Examples of this talent emerge often, as Mankato writers continue to win Speakeasy awards, Pushcart Prizes, even the coveted Tamarack Award. Examples also emerge when the work, itself, is published, such as Nicole Helget’s recent novel “The Turtle Catcher” and, Thursday, MSU English Professor Diana Joseph’s memoir “I’m Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing But True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother and Friend to Man and Dog.” (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
The book — which tells Joseph’s story through her relationships with men (and a dog and a boy) — has received excellent reviews from renowned writers Richard Ford, Sarah Vowell and Ayelet Waldman, among various others. The collection of stories began with an essay she wrote about her son, “The Boy,” which won the Kentucky Women Writers Prize for Creative Nonfiction.
Joseph built from there, going on to write about her father, whom she saw as a forceful, yet mysterious presence in her life; her ex-husband, a lumberjack with deer heads mounted in the living room; and even her dog, who constantly humps her son’s yellow dinosaur.
Here’s a bit more about the book from the author:
Free Press: Would you consider this a memoir? It seemed more like a collection of essays.
Diana Joseph: “Memoir” is a slippery term, isn’t it? And I think your question has to do with structure. Some memoirs are structured in such a way that they seem like a novel, only true. My book is a collection of personal essays that are united by certain themes — the most obvious of which is my relationships with these various men. Memoir is different from autobiographies you might have read in that you don’t get the full part of my life from birth to old age; instead, in “I’m Sorry...” you get a glimpse into this one aspect of it.
FP: What is the common thread, to use the old cliché, or what is it that connects the stories of all of these men in your book?
DJ: This is a book about the men who’ve been important to me, but I think it’s also about other things: motherhood, and dismantling the idea of “the perfect mother”; my relationship with my father, in all the ways it’s flawed and in all the ways it’s powerful, and how that relationship has informed my relationships with other men (I put it as the first essay purposefully); the idea that love is complicated, that we can feel both deep love and deep irritation for the same person, sometimes at the same time; that I think our lives are both tragic and hilarious, sacred and absurd — black humor or finding something funny in the midst of dark moments is central to how I move through the world.
I also think this is a book about social class. I come from a very blue-collar, working-class family — which comes out in the piece about my dad — but it’s there in other essays, too: my financial struggles as a single mother; my reaction to my friend, Andrew Boyle, (he’s pretty snobby and elitist and my response to that is mixed); the discomfort I felt at faculty parties when everyone was talking about New York articles and NPR. Even the stuff about my former boyfriend, Vincent Petrone’s, demolition derby car or Ashleigh, the Young Republican’s girlfriend, shows my intense interest in and grappling with issues surrounding class. This isn’t a book about a girl from the suburbs, for example, or a girl from a white collar family.
FP: In certain chapters, there seems to be a lack of your presence, sort of like you’re hanging back and describing a character without personal response to what he meant to you or what you took away from that relationship. Was that by design?
DJ: I think I’m present in all of the essays in one way or other in a couple of ways. First, I hope my details and the way I describe people or situations tell you something about me. Someone else might hang out with Andrew Boyle and arrive at an entirely different way of describing him. I found him obnoxious sometimes while other times, I saw him as really vulnerable (the detail about looking at him and seeing the boy in blue footie pajamas waking up super excited on the morning of his birthday is one of my favorite details.) Who knows what set of details you would see when you look at him?
I tell my writing students that how you say something reveals as much as what you say.
But I also think I’m there in the moments of reflection. “Love in the Age of Ick” gives a portrait of Vincent Petrone but you also get a glimpse into who I was — or thought I was — when I was with him (Did I really love him or did I just hate myself?)
Who am I as a sister, as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother? These are all roles that women find themselves in, and I was interested in holding up each of these guys to find out how neatly — or messily — I fit into these roles.
FP: The title, “I’m Sorry You Feel That Way,” comes into play several times at the end. My feeling was that hearing that phrase from your ex-husband made you realize what you were looking for in a man and what had been lacking.
DJ: ... I think these are the worst words one person can say to another — that phrase is really about the absolute refusal to empathize or even try to empathize.
FP: The book began with one essay, “The Boy.” When you write a book chapter by chapter, or essay by essay, is there a concern about cohesion? How do you make sure the book will flow from story to story?
DJ: I didn’t worry about that until after I’d written all of the essays, and then the process of arranging them (and rearranging them) was something my editor helped me with. My original arrangement was chronological; my editor thought arranging them rhetorically, or according to their impact on the reader, would work better. I think she was right.
There are a few pieces that didn’t end up in the book, mostly because they weren’t saying anything that I hadn’t already said.
FP: Did you learn things about yourself while you sat down to reflect and remember these relationships?
DJ: Absolutely. Especially about the class stuff I talk about above. I didn’t think about class issues at all when I was writing these, but when I sat down and looked at the book as a whole, I saw it all over the place.
FP: Memoir seems to have gotten a bad wrap lately, with so many authors being busted for making up stories. Even locally, Nicole Helget’s memoir, “The Summer of Ordinary Ways,” became controversial when parts were refuted by some of her family members.
Did the current public opinion on “memoir” give you pause about releasing this book now?
DJ: Not really. Because the thing is, there’s a world of difference between a memoir that’s completely fabricated (Margaret Seltzer’s “Love and Consequences,” for example, or Misha DeFonseca’s “Misha: Memoire of the Holocaust Years”) and a memoir like Helget’s where family/friends dispute how a past event is remembered. I think most readers are smart enough to know the difference.
I also think most readers understand that memories are about each individual’s perceptions. My students and I talk all the time about how a brother’s memories of how his parents’ divorce went down can be really different from his sister’s idea of it or his mother’s story of it or his father’s perception of it. ...
I like how Tobias Wolff introduced his memoir, “This Boy’s Life”; he says, “This is a book of memory, and memory has its own story to tell.”
FP: The boy — has he read the book? How does he feel about you making him famous?
DJ: He’s not especially interested in it. He knows he’s in there, but he’s got other things he thinks about. My guess is he’ll be interested in it when he’s much older.
FP: Were the names changed to protect the innocent?
DJ: Yes. My lawyer made me.
If You Go:
What: Reading and release party for Diana Joseph’s memoir, “I’m Sorry You Feel That Way”
When & where: Reading: 7 p.m. Thursday at Barnes & Noble in Mankato; Book release party: Friday at the What’s Up Lounge in Mankato
Information: Visit http://imsorryyoufeelthatway.blogspot.com.
For more Free Press news go to http://www.mankatofreepress.com/
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