This is the year of memoirs

2020 through 2022 were my years of research nonfiction. Books about psychology, animals, neuroscience — attempts to grow with my boyfriend (then fiancé, now husband) and understand the dog in front of me.

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2023 was my year of fiction, inhaling titles through my Kindle while we drove our van around the United States.

I remember what I was reading in the passenger seat when we got stuck in the ditch (The Shadows by Alex North) and in bed on the summer solstice in Denali National Park (The It Girl by Ruth Ware) and in a lawn chair by the lake at our first-ever waterfront camp (The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune) and in the swiveled cab chairs when wildfires swept through Canada and forced us to spend stuffy afternoons inside Hermes (I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai). I bought the Wool series by Hugh Howey and swallowed it whole during a feverish bedridden week — I remember almost nothing of those days except the sweaty comforter and Scout’s nose against my chest and the story itself — then followed it up with Stephen King’s Fairy Tale.

In total, I finished 116 books, 89 of them fiction. (A few nonfiction titles and poetry collections snuck in. One has to read Emerson’s words about the Adirondacks when visiting them for the first time.)

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2024 is the year of memoirs and narratives and informal essays — the kind of work that feels like an author has welcomed me into their kitchen and is spilling their soul for me to catch in a proffered teacup. I can even take it home with me if I want. I can keep it forever.

I cried on the highway, watching Sean drive our house down to Florida, reading Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. (“Were we unusually dependent on each other,” she asks of her marriage after her husband dies in front of her, “or were we unusually lucky?”)

I consumed The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser in a Saint Augustine campground, Spanish moss above my head, feet sore from jogging miles into the historic town for morning coffee. (Sean cheered me on during that run. He always does.) I saw myself in Hauser’s failed engagement — more importantly, in her misguided attempts to not have needs — and realized again how far I’ve come.

James Hamblin’s Clean enthused me in the purest way. I became a little kid again, learning for the first time how different the whole world can look if you tilt your perspective a little. Then David Sedaris made me laugh with Calypso on the beach in Miami. Moonwalking With Einstein by Josh Foer inspired me to try my own head at memorizing shuffled decks of cards while joining my family’s spring break vacation. Stephen King’s On Writing paralyzed me, brought me to overthink every word I typed, but not before keeping me awake until midnight to drink the entire second half in one gulp. (I don’t lament the paralysis. It was short. It was needed, too.)

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And if 2024 is the year of reading memoirs and narratives and informal essays… it is also the year of writing my own.

I understand I am not qualified to write a memoir-type book — probably any book. But I’ve learned I don’t have to be. Young journalists have inspired me. Small fiction authors bared their real-life hearts, left me in tears holding hope. An old (forgive me) woman grabbed me by the shoulders, told me she understands the way I feel for Sean. A middle-aged man riffed about guest bedrooms and beach houses and invited me into jokes I’ve never come close to living. They still landed.

If these people can do these things, so can I. Perhaps — probably, almost certainly — not as well. But “not perfect” does not mean “not worthwhile” and “not Joan Didion” does not mean “sucks to high heaven” and I will take doses of confidence wherever I’m offered them.

As I type here, my first draft, 200-odd pages in a Google doc simply titled “Book manuscript”, is open in another tab. And it is ready for revisions.