Writerliness... And Such Things Implied By

In Driving with Dead People, Monica Holloway does things that we have not seen this semester. She combines decades of storytelling with a linear narrative. She introduces and utilizes a huge cast of characters. Most noticeable to me, though, out of everything, is her lack of concern with “writerliness”. There are two ways I can frame this (and two ways that I will!). The first is simply that the narrator (and the narrative) is not concerned with the path toward or the act of being a writer. Certainly, this was prominent in the Lam, where many of the essays are concerned with describing both his relationship with language and his need – not to mention abilities – to use express it in writing. The bookend chapters of the Sadaawi specifically explain that narrator’s need to write the story. The Jordan takes the time to show that child as both an avid reader and a budding young writer. The topic is less direct in the Gornick, but we understand that one of the things that complicates that character’s relationship with her mother is her writing. The second way to frame Holloway’s unconcern with “writerliness” is in that she doesn’t seem to be interested in complicating things too much on either a narrative or a language level.

The first idea seems somehow more obvious to consider, but I find it kind of fascinating at the same time. The obvious difference between Monica Holloway and any of the other people we have read is that Holloway did not come into being a memoirist from a career in writing. She was an actress. This is also maybe the least useful way to look at it, because it gets very easy to start being dismissive when the line of reasoning runs she’s not REALLY a writer, and I want to do my best to avoid that. Of course she’s a writer. And accomplished, and highly praised, at that (I read the book jacket!). I’ll try to touch on the urge to be dismissive later, anyway. It’s not a pretty urge. Better to look at these points as choices. So, the first choice: Why not reflect on writing? Again, it sort of seems like an obvious answer: Well, it’s not a story about that. But I’m not convinced. The story had to be written, not only in the sense that since it was written it must have been, but also in the sense that there had to have been both an undeniable impulse to express this story in this particular media and a labored process to develop the skills with which to do it. This is where that idea that Holloway is, of course, a writer comes back. There are things that she manages too skillfully to not have put herself through the paces of becoming a writer. Other blog posts cover these at length, and some include her ability to distill (or condense) character and her constant flagging of the narrator’s potential unreliability. So the story, like all of the others we’ve read, is about writing, because it HAD to be written. The decision to withhold this from the narrative, I think, speaks more to whom the narrative is about than to what it is about. It is of course, among other things, about writing (the what), in that abstract way I put forth, but it is more importantly about people (the who) who are not so concerned with writing. It is about JoAnn. It is about Dad. It is about a Monica who was then an actress.

But the juicier craft question is the second one I bring up about “writerliness”. Throughout – and this is reflected in a few of the responses I’ve seen – we (or I) get the sense that Holloway is taking it easy on us.

Just one spot (243): “’FUCK YOU!’ I yelled… ‘DON’T STAND ME UP EVER AGAIN—EVER!’ I yelled.”

As though the ALL CAPS were not enough to signify yelling, we get exclamation points. As though those were not enough, we get the speech tag “I yelled”. Twice. She must have been very loud indeed.

Another spot – maybe my favorite (303): “’I never touched her,’ he said, panicked. ‘I never touched that girl.’ / I put the receiver in my lap and my forehead against the cool wall.” We know what’s going on now. We see his reaction. We see her reaction to it. We’re good. Or are we…? “He knew exactly what I was talking about.” Okay. Now we’re good. Reaction, reaction, inference. Done. Except… “He denied something that no one was accusing him of doing.” Gotcha. Figured that one out on my own, but thanks, still. Totally good. “If he wasn’t guilty, how else would he have come up with that scenario?” Good? No...? Yes...? Yes.

Some others describe similar things in their responses that seemed distracting. Topic sentence syndrome and such.

And this is where that dismissal urge comes back. God, wouldn’t it be so simple to just say that Holloway is probably not much of a writer and be done with it? Wouldn’t that… wouldn’t it be… nice?

Well, I guess it would actually be pretty mean. And I don’t believe it. Evan’s response, in particular, convinces me that Holloway is a writer who does things with a plan. Look at how carefully she seeds the text with her own unreliability. That’s downright crafty, damn it. So, I need to drop the dismissal baby on its head. She’s a good writer. Why did she make this choice?

To be honest, I’m still working that one out. The easy answer might be marketing. There is an audience for this text and Holloway is free to make crafty craft choices that help her select that audience. By “holding our hands” she may simply be inviting the broadest readership possible. In some ways that still feels like an easy answer. And it feels somehow cynical to boot. Beyond that, I want to say something about, again, the kind of story she’s writing. It’s as unabstracted as possible, somehow, and it seems that it is a book about recovery. I think again about the other books we’ve read, and all of them, Jordan, Sadaawi, Lam, Gornick, are about discovery and exploration. But this is about recovery. And by the end we are made to understand that the key to recovery is laying things bare. And that is the thought that satisfies me.

And maybe my cynical side or my dismissive side are right in their own ways, but this side (the diplomatic one?) is the one that is actually satisfying. The book cannot be abstracted in all of those writerly ways we’re addicted to, because that would not reflect the struggle and the aim of recovery as suggested by the text itself.