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Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship's Reviews > Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses
Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses
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Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship's review
bookshelves: abandoned, memoirs, united-states
Feb 22, 2024
bookshelves: abandoned, memoirs, united-states
Read through page 62.
I saw this memoir had been criticized for lack of emotion and insight, but figured I’d give it a try anyway because a skilled author can deploy emotion subtly—Dog Flowers is a good example of a memoir about a chaotic childhood that does this well. Sadly, with this particular book I wound up agreeing with the critics.
You can tell the author went through an MFA program, even though the writing style is fairly plain, because a huge amount of the text consists of just descriptions of things, mostly highly detailed visuals of people’s clothing, grooming, mannerisms, and home décor. Keep in mind the author was 6-8 years old at the time of these observations and writing about them 30 years later. There is no way she remembered all this stuff, and you can tell she took imaginative license in other ways as well. In all, I can see why she found far more success as an author of trendy historical fiction than as a memoirist.
I saw this memoir had been criticized for lack of emotion and insight, but figured I’d give it a try anyway because a skilled author can deploy emotion subtly—Dog Flowers is a good example of a memoir about a chaotic childhood that does this well. Sadly, with this particular book I wound up agreeing with the critics.
You can tell the author went through an MFA program, even though the writing style is fairly plain, because a huge amount of the text consists of just descriptions of things, mostly highly detailed visuals of people’s clothing, grooming, mannerisms, and home décor. Keep in mind the author was 6-8 years old at the time of these observations and writing about them 30 years later. There is no way she remembered all this stuff, and you can tell she took imaginative license in other ways as well. In all, I can see why she found far more success as an author of trendy historical fiction than as a memoirist.
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Reading Progress
June 14, 2023
– Shelved
June 14, 2023
– Shelved as:
considering
January 25, 2024
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 22, 2024
– Shelved as:
abandoned
February 22, 2024
– Shelved as:
memoirs
February 22, 2024
– Shelved as:
united-states
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Whisprose
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Feb 22, 2024 04:39PM
I would absolutely love to know your thoughts on MFA programs and the writing they produce
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Whisprose wrote: "I would absolutely love to know your thoughts on MFA programs and the writing they produce "Oh, I doubt I have very useful thoughts on that, having no experience with them myself. Mostly I notice when an MFA author gets a little too artsy at the expense of story—I’m not sure it would occur to many people to write a memoir that focused on physical descriptions of minor characters over events and feelings, without attending some program like that and being praised for it. This author’s eye for detail is certainly impressive—even if she filled in a lot, consciously or not, based on people she met later, it’s still impressive—and I’ll bet in an MFA program she got a lot of positive reinforcement for that. And maybe not so much encouragement for writing strong, unsubtle, heartstring-tugging emotions, which is seen as gauche in some more literary circles.
But then plenty of MFAs tell good stories too. From this author’s success with her fiction I imagine she improved. It’s just so easy to pick on.
