hot memoir summer
plus what now? group chat tonight 8pm UK time
Hi friends,
We memoir writers may still be waiting for
to gift us a category that best describes our work (I’m in Parenting while my colleagues span Health & Wellness, Literature, Culture, Philosophy and even Fiction) but this week my agent, , delivered Good News about the genre more broadly in a note you can read in full here.
We know memoir and narrative non-fiction does well on this platform, and many of us can attest to this IRL, too. I travelled east on Wednesday to hear Melissa Febos in conversation with the brilliant and funny Dina Nayeri at Lighthouse Books in Edinburgh’s old town, desperate was I to see a literary idol in the flesh as she travels around the place promo-ing her new book, The Dry Season: a Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex. She was so honest and – yes – hot on the revelations and joys of celibacy that many of us left the sold-out event considering our life choices. That it was sold out didn’t surprise me one bit. Whenever I go to see writers of memoir, their events are busy. Personal narrative is what I and so many of my friends and colleagues devour and I know readers here feel the same.
That evening (thanks to a thoughtful friend in a high place) I also took into my sweaty little hands a copy of Glynnis MacNicol’s new one, I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman’s Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris. Another midlife woman bringing stories of pleasure-seeking in all its forms up for air, so if you’re looking for memoir or, indeed, fiction for the All-Fours / Scaffolding-sized hole in your life that the absolute turn-off And Just Like That… consistently fails to fill, start with these two then invest in everything Annie Ernaux has ever written because books do midlife sex, desire and permission to indulge in pleasure so much better than the telly.
I should say I’m not dictating that life writers must write decadence and sex to sell a manuscript or fill a venue. To do so might involve an almighty career pivot, setting aside the requirement to first have and then feel moved to write about their midlife sex lives (solo, partnered or whatever else is happening out there). However, there’s no hiding from the fact that these pleasure-soaked stories are the ones we seem to most want to read and then talk long and late about with our pals. We’re hungry for books that serve up the naked vulnerability of midlife and look us in the eye while doing so. That offer deep, shame-free personal enquiry on top of all the hot sex. For the thing is, it's never salacious. Instead these writers elevate, intellectualise, politicise and celebrate a whole range of hitherto suppressed experiences women are having – first and foremost – in and with their own bodies. Imagine that. Women enjoying their bodies. More broadly, women enjoying themselves for enjoyment’s sake and in any way they please, be it through sex or food or friendships or travel or whatever. It's an act of resistance.
A surprising plot twist: neither midlife women nor the memoir genre are quite done yet.
If this feels like a stretch then at the very least, let’s agree we have reason to be optimistic for the genre. It means I’m calling this our Hot Memoir Summer, what with the above reading list plus the launch of The Chain this week (Tuesday’s pre-project call link in inboxes TOMORROW for everyone signed up) in which we’ll write fast and fearlessly (sex or no sex) in joyful community for six weeks this summer.
FYI: more on midlife sex, desire and hormones from the archive here:
And more this week on the possible (bright) future of memoir in the age of AI from
:
What Now? Group Chat 8-9pm UK time TONIGHT
Members, you’ll get the usual ping at 8pm tonight in the app or desktop where I’d be more than happy if the conversation veers in the direction of the above post, just saying. Upgrade to the Membership now to join us.
Lindsay x
Just finished The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt and so much of what she had to say about social class and exclusion struck a chord with me.
Reading memoirs has been my great source of pleasure lately, just finished the 4th one in 6 days, as I am devouring them on my reading holiday by the sea sans (s)ex.