So… those of you who read this thread and some others know that I’m trying to polish up some posts here and some other autobiographical stories to submit for publication. I’ve asked several people to give me feedback because I’m curious as to what works and what doesn’t.
I really can take criticism, I swear it. As a matter of fact in many ways I take criticism better than I do compliments, which embarass the hell out of me. More often than not I’ll say “Yeah, you’re right- that paragraph really doesn’t work” or “that sidestory bogs down the flow- I love it but you’re right, it should go”, or if I disagree then I’ll make a reasonable “I understand your point, but personally I do think this should be written in dialect because to me his impediment and accent are just an extremely strong memory”.
But… I asked an acquaintance, an English professor (raised in suburban Philadelphia) who does some editing and writing of her own, to read them and offer her critiques. Her response just made me “…the hell? You got that from what I wrote?”
Okay…
- Romanticize them? I describe my 82 year old grandmother’s bare ass hanging out a window while her lobotomized sister pisses on the ground, houses that literally assailed every allergy you’d ever thought of having before you ever get out of the car, constant dogs being dumped by the side of the road and coming to us emaciated and unwanted [and usually getting killed in the road], dead impoverished black children playing in a fallow garden, old women leaving their filthy log home [where at least two of their former cats were mummified] to take an ‘ish’ in the woods… where have I romanticized anything? I’d hate to see what you called gritty realism. (Perhaps I should have had a bloody reenactment of Lucy’s lobotomy, maybe? Or describe my grandmother’s anus?)
2- My childhood did not take place in a town, small or otherwise. It took place on a cattle farm five miles from the nearest gas station, ten miles from the nearest “town” (whose current population is about 150) and twenty miles from a town with a supermarket. This may seem like a trivial distinction, but it’s not.
3- I think what you know of small towns comes from reading Faulkner, not from living in them. Yes, they can be living hells on Earth and just thoroughly evil places, but not everybody there is living a life of quiet desperation (most in particulalry they aren’t all living the quiet part). And I would wager there are one hell of a lot more blasted dreams in NYC and LA and Chicago than there are in Enterprise, Alabama, and a whole lot more real poverty.
- I was 18 and GAY in very rural Alabama, I know a thing or two about dying to get out of the place you were born (though the manner in which we finally left was a bit…ahem… awkward). Even I don’t think it was that melodramatic.
Then she says
Um… my grandmother’s 82 year old naked ass was hanging out a window while her sister peed on the ground. My senile 97 year old aunt thought Sandy Duncan was trying to watch her eliminate. My brother and I faked a 240 lb. dead dog being tickled. Most of the most miserable moments of my life happened in that house, but even when these things were happening I thought they were funny as hell. They were frustrating, embarassing and decidedly bizarre, but realizing just how absurdly funny it was kept me sane.
And I hope that there’s nothing remotely self pitying about my writing. I like to think I got over that a long time ago. (Of course I also like to think I look like Ricky Martin when I wear my muscle shirts, but I have many sworn statements that would indicate otherwise.)
She earlier wrote thisThe Potato Head Bible Beating Story:
Okay, I was the child being abused, and it was 30 years ago and I can see things a lot more clearly now, and I will still tell you flatly, I deserved that ass-whippin’. In fact, if I had been my child (which given my family’s genealogy would probably be somehow possible), I would have blistered my butt a lot more frequently than I did.
And yet then she says this:
Uh… no. Those were child abuse. Yes, the recipe/suicide letter is written for comedic effect, but in general I didn’t think they were funny. Some you knew were just hot air and emotional flatulence, but the others were absolutely terrifying. There wasn’t a lot funny about thinking your mother is going to send a bullet through her brain and using everything in your power including faking messages from the beyond and speaking in tongues to get her not to, but I’m glad you found those amusing even if you didn’t the naked old woman in the window.
Well, I know that this is going to sound whiny and thin-skinned, but I’m really not either. Of course she also says she doesn’t understand how anybody can read Flannery O’Connor (though oddly she likes Faulkner). I really do hope that others who’ve read them understand a bit more what I was going for or can see the humor in an old woman’s ass (and life in the eyes of a child).
Sorry for the rant, especially since it’s drearily close to a Ray Walston “A MARTIAN WOULD NEVER SAY THAT!” primadonna fit, but I just had to vent. (And to any others I’ve asked for criticism, I promise that you won’t wind up here- it’s not the criticism that I minded of the above but the absurdity of the allegations.)
