...to HATE 'misery memoirs'

[rhirhirhirirhi]

Over the past four years or so I've seen memoirs' become increasingly popular, but surely I can't be one of the only people who thinks that there is something inherently weird and creepy about revelling in these tales of woe? I think it's completely acceptable to read them as a way of supporting yourself if you've been through something similar, but I cannot begin to understand why somebody would otherwise choose to read them. The other day I was in a big Tesco and they had a BOGOF offer on them- allowing some woman to eagerly scoop up 8 (!) with names like, 'Please Daddy No' and 'Our Little Secret' and put them in her trolley.

I was speaking to a friend about this recently and she admitted that she loves them, and said that it helps her to ''appreciate her life''. Worse still, she tried to justify it by saying that many of the ones she'd read were actually fiction, so technically she wasn't really 'experiencing a real person's misery''. Fictional misery memoirs?! Good God, if I were an author writing pretend tales of child abuse I would seriously be re-evaluating my skills! AIBU to think that most people should be perfectly capable of appreciating their life without having to delve into a book detailing the horrendous life of some poor person?

oliviacrumble i read "ma, he sold me fr a few cigarettes" it was terrible.

Well it's certainly a terrible terrrible title, so I'd expect nothing less!

Fab vid

I think books like Wild Swans are somehow 'different' because they were a first and were big eye openers about societies and events we didn't know much about. Angela's Ashes strikes me as another one that fits the misery memoir bill but still made a good read

I think the negative connotations start as you simply get too many books in the same vein and become indistinguishable

I really hate the way the shops have whole shelves devoted to them, and the way they are somehow all exactly the same.
But what really annoys me is the way they put books on those shelves that don't belong there, like Roots and Anne Frank, neither of which are grief porn! The probem is the shop assistants judge the books by their covers and put some books on those shelves (e.g. Anne) without checking to see what they are about. I've even seen pure fiction on those shelves.
I have to wonder what Alex Haley or Anne Frank would think about their amazing books put next to all the misery lit!
What gets me is the sexual abuse. I have read Dave Pelzer and although it was very upsetting, I didn't feel bad about reading it. I just cannot touch a book that has a title that makes it obvious that this is about incestuous sexual abuse e.g. Please daddy, no.
Actually I don't mind Torey Hayden books themselves, although I really hate the packaging on them. They are intersting, although I can't see myself reading all of them.

thesecondcoming I really loved 'once in a house on fire' and thought it was so well written and not sensationalist at all. Some memoirs are just great even if they are about difficult subjects

jacey sorry I didnt see your post before I put my wrote mine about the covers

I dont wish to seem patronizing towards the authors of the later works (i.e. after the pound signs starting appearing in the eyes of the publishers), but i do feel they are being milked. I get the feeling they are encouraged to beef it all up a bit if possible. Not that I dont believe truly unbelievable things happen - its just never enough when money is involved.

I know of parents who have been contacted via their late children's memorial websites. They are approached to do articles in the Trash Mags (or chav mags [grin[). Its not about telling a beloved child's story, its not about raising awarness of whatever took them, its about money and thats it.

How awful it must be to pour your heart out and then have relatives come out of the woodwork and say you are lying

I am not expert on abuse but isnt it fairly common for one child to be 'choosen' for abuse and the others left alone?

What must that do to the author? Do they get any follow up support from the people who make the cash out of their life story?

YANBU at all.

I read the 3 Dave Pelzer books when I was a teen. I was going through a rough time and frankly was into anything dark to make my own life less horrible. I think I was the only one of my friends (who all read it) who was genuinely horrified rather than sort of enjoying the shock of it, IYSWIM.

Then met DH. His childhood is pretty much like in 'a child called it' - it could've been written about him, right down to the other siblings being treated better than him. Awful, horrible things my DH went through. Unlike Dave Pelzer, my DH didn't get saved and put into care. He's probably only still alive because his mum fucked off when he was 15.

Sorry I'm waffling now.

I do think it's pretty sick that shops now have whole modules of 'tragic life stories' but I kind of object to the way the actual victims are making money out of it. Is it going to make it all better? Hell no. DH just gets on with his life FGS. Despite the horrible childhood he's happy and a wonderful husband and father, and the abuse really isn't a big deal anymore. The idea of his 'story' being sold... it's vile.

I was actually abused too, and went through severe depression/self harm in my teens because of it, although all very 'mild' compared to DH. But I know full well that if I really wanted to I could spin it out and sell it. That thought makes me very uncomfortable because why would I need to sell it? Five minutes of fame maybe?

Shame I have moral standards really, we could use the money.

Hmm just reread my post. Sorry, I hope I didn't come across as thinking that everyone should just 'get over it' if they go through hell. I know it's not that easy. my point was, selling the story won't help in any way.

MMM I think you make a very good point - I understand completely why it would be very cathartic to write these things down, but somehow setting out to deliberately and cynically turn it into a money-spinner leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

To be honest, I think it also encourages some attention seekers to start totally exagerating the 'awfulness' of their own childhood. It is not unknown for one of these memoirs to be published and to have people who were around at the time rolling their eyes up to heaven at the exagerations and over dramatisation of things that they know were not really as bad as portrayed.

It's funny that this topic has been raised because I was in The Works a couple of weeks ago and there was a whole shelf of these books all lined up together and I found myself backing away very rapidly, I was shocked by how many there were of them and of the titles too, it was very obvious just from the titles that they were going to be very graphic tales of abuse. I wouldn't have read them before I was a mum and I certainly wouldn't now.

I'm now a Childminder and on the initial course we had a very uncomfortable session on 'Safeguarding' which is basically child protection, it was awful and made me very uneasy about becoming a CM because I didn't particularly want the responsibility of having to look out for signs of abuse, let alone be the one to have enough concerns to contact the relevant authorities about it . The thought of reading a book by someone recounting their abuse is not something that springs to mind as a good read!

Saying that, I have read crime books (The Krays and one on the Wests) and enjoyed them - not for the violence (the on on the Wests was awful and I skim read a lot) but because they were factual accounts (not by victims) significant crimes - the ones people talk about as it were. I often want to know why someone committed murder/a crime etc and find it interesting to see how their life made them into something so evil, or whether there were signs from an early age that they were capable of such things. But then I have wanted to be a criminal profiler/psychologist for over 10 years so I don't expect most people are the same!

I certainly wouldn't lump reading factual accounts of crime in the same catagory as reading grief-stricken tales of abuse though, they aren't the same thing in my eyes at all.

As for Saw - I can't watch horror movies of any sort, having heard an account of what happens in some of the Saw movies I will be leaving well alone!

There's literature and there's 'lit'. Some memoirs are really well written (Are You Somebody? Falling Leaves, Angela's Ashes) and the better ones tend to deftly walk the fine line between inviting prurient interest (or outright voyeurism in some cases) and elevating life into art.

Most misery porn is ghost-written, or heavily edited. Very different to decent authors, and a million miles away from Wild Swans etc.

I call them slit your wrists books! SOoooooooooooooooooooo depressing!

I don't know what they are. This is the first I have heard of Misery Lit - but they sound like a depressives version of Mills & Boon?

Are they doing well because of the recession do you think?

I kind of have faith in the Dave Pelzer ones TBH - it's the later ones, where people have jumped on the tragedy bandwagon (?) where I am a bit

Either way, it's definitely not impossible for such experience to be remembered perfectly, certainly DH remembers some incidents in very clear detail. even in 'normal' circumstances, some things you remember from childhood more clearly than others.

Interesting article about Pelzer.

This bit probably nears the truth- that there is a certain amount of embellishment going on:

"His second book, ''The Lost Boy'' (which was published by H.C.I. in 1997 and has spent 160 weeks on the list), chronicles Pelzer's experiences in foster homes. These are dull by comparison, so Pelzer devotes significant space in ''The Lost Boy'' to rehashing the abuse incidents from his earlier book, as well as adding some newly remembered scenes, like the time his mother made him eat dog feces. In a recent interview, he offered even more details, saying that it was dog feces ''with worms'' and that his mother had stabbed him not in the stomach but ''in the heart.'' Pelzer calls himself ''a storyteller,'' and it is hard not to read or listen to his stories and think that this description may be a little too on target, that his m.o. is to tell a story, gauge the response to it and then embellish until that story reaches the limits of believability."

That article is going for the jugular somewhat, you can tell from the first line that it's going to be a negative article. I personally haven't read any of his books but I find it hard to believe he could have so many all about the same topic. I do think that people are slightly naive if they think every single bit is going to be 100% true and that no embelishment happens.

am shocked, and quite upset, by the idea that even that one is exaggerated TBH - as all the stuff in the book could, and does, happen to children. fame must've gone to his head.

also, if it's a widely held belief that one should take all these types of books with a pinch of salt, that doesn't give a very good message does it. it is totally unfair to people who do go through that stuff and wouldn't dream of 'embellishing' it.