(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

What is going on with the current fad for books about horrible, abused childhoods?  My local Waterstones now has a whole section labelled Tragic Life Stories: I can't even begin to list in how many ways this is wrong.  The memoirs all have respectably blurred photos of crying children on the front cover, and preposterous titles like Daddy, Don't

Comments

[hobnobofjoy]

I blame Teri Hatcher.

She may not be the root of all this, but I have an irrational dislike of her, and she published her terrible life story so she's certainly encouraging this behaviour.

I think I noticed that section too last time I was in a book story. I'm not sure when this became a genre in its own right equivalent with Crime... and are they all autobiographical, or are they putting fiction in there too? In which case the genre can be defined as 'for those who enjoy child abuse in any form', and that just ain't right.

[wwidsith]

No, I think your dislike of Hatcher is wholly rational. Her name freaks me out a bit - I sort of imagine her squatting over some eggs. Which is a horrible mental image to deal with, however fleetingly.

[hobnobofjoy]

Oh great, thanks for that.

Some of the eggs are oozing now... Brilliant.

Personally I get images of a hatchet. Some great axe in the cranium of popular culture...

[commonpeople]

I agree wholeheartedly. It must say something about British culture, though.

[wwidsith]

And whatever it is, it's being said with a small vocabulary and a total lack of irony. I guess it's part of the same trend that gave us reality TV - this idea that everyone now thinks they are inherently fascinating and that they have a sort of right to broadcast their experiences and opinions.

[commonpeople]

Yes, but what about the hundreds of thousands buying the books?!

[wwidsith]

I know! I'm just mystified. All of them like to say that they're "life-affirming" - whatever that means exactly - but to me they're just really depressing.

[antarcticlust]

I am typically annoyed by the notion of writing as therapy - or, rather, selling writing as therapy. I think that's self-serving and ultimately masterbatory. You don't have to write for an audience, but there's something inherently narcissistic about using the fame and consolation generated by these "bestsellers." I don't want to read them - not because I like a sheltered life, but because there's nothing (for me) to be learned or gained from reading them. Even if I had suffered abuse, I don't see the value in re-living someone else's abuse.

[wwidsith]

Me neither. And you're bang on to link the fame and the consolation.

[herself_nyc]

Heh.
Writing as an act of recovery has certainly taken off in the last 20 years, and like you, I'm sick to death of it.

Who is Dave Pelzer?

[wwidsith]

He's an American "author", whose eight books are all about his horrific childhood abuse. A Child Called It was the famous one, and started a bit of a trend.

[herself_nyc]

Eight books. Talk about milking it.

[hobnobofjoy]

I thought this might interest you.

http://aprn.org/2008/01/22/eyak-language-dies-with-its-last-speaker/

[wwidsith]

Agh, that is tragic.