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AIBU?

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Original poster

to be saddened and confused by this section in Waterstones

131 replies

SlightlyUndead · 21/10/2010 11:34

I know this is going to come out wrong and I will probably get flamed...

There are now so many paperback biographies/ autobigraphies written by adults who were abused as children that it has it's own section on our local Waterstones. I remember seeing David Peltzer interviewed a few years ago when "A Child Called It" was first published. It was one of the first
bestsellers of this kind, the interview was harrowing and deeply upsetting and I understood that writing it down was a kind of therapy for him. If the process of writing a book about such awful experiences helps with the healing process in some way, I'm all for it. But what I don't really understand is the 'popularity' of such books. I did read 'A Child Called It' in the light of all the publicity and obviously found it very upsetting. I am not saying we should 'close our eyes' to such things but surely if you really care, you can donate to/do work for the NSPCC or Childline. I have seen mothers in the playground reading one of these books after another and I just can't help feeling that there is something a bit gratuitous (spelling?) and voyeristic about it. The more 'horrific' the childhood, the better read?

Oh this does seem to have come out a but wrong but what I am trying to say is that it seems that these books are now a reading genre in themeselves now and I just find it disturbing that there is an appetite for it. But then I don't ever read any 'gory details' in the newspaper if it involves children being hurt....

Maybe I am missing something? I am happy to have it explained to me.

OP posts:
Fibilou · 21/10/2010 11:36

I find misery porn a revolting genre. I do not believe that most people read it for anything other than a rather sick enjoyment.

StewieGriffinsMom · 21/10/2010 11:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sethstarkaddersmummyreturns · 21/10/2010 11:39

What in God's name have they called the section? 'Misery porn' or even 'Misery lit' wouldn't quite look right on a sign....

nancydrewrocked · 21/10/2010 11:39

I have never read any of the books in this "genre" - (except for lucky by Alice Seebold which I read after reading the lovely bones)

I find the concept frankly weird. I cannot imagine how anyone is "entertained" by them and suspect some of the more graphic books are read by the perpetrators of similar abuse for enjoyment.

NordicPrincess · 21/10/2010 11:39

i think it makes people feel better about themselves and parenting. also people feed off extremes in life. i dont like reading them, i read one about a girl that was sexuall abused by her "uncles and aunts". It was actually a peadophile ring. she was so badly traumatised she never recoved and now lives in a special house barely able to talk or function.

nasty.

Im never reading one again

victoriascrumptious · 21/10/2010 11:39

A child called it really annoyed me. I'm sure that makes me a right c.nt

nancydrewrocked · 21/10/2010 11:40

fibilou "misery porn" sums it up so much better!

Trubert · 21/10/2010 11:44

YANBU. I agree with you entirely.

Hullygully · 21/10/2010 11:46

Vile. Yet it does vastly entertain me and the dc to spend a few minutes in competition to find the worst blurb in the "Very Sad and Almost True" section in Smiths.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/10/2010 11:47

I am just trying to remember what they call this section in Waterstones.

It is all shite, and I judge people hugely who read this and consider them as thick as two short planks. It is the titilation element of it that I absolutely loathe.

Books called 'please, daddy, no'. I seriously hope the publishers are ashamed of themselves (they won't be, they're raking it in).

There was a thread about this a couple of months back, SBG came up with a brilliant misery lit title 'Tuppence for a gob job on Shit Street' which made me laugh.

Chil1234 · 21/10/2010 11:48

'Misery porn' is right... and it has spilled over from the 'Daddy! No!' (thank you Dara O'Briain) type book into the celeb biography as well. Not enough to simply have had an interesting life in the public eye these days but it has to be dollied up with big references to warts-and-all - preferably -psychological trauma.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/10/2010 11:49

I read a couple of chapter of Child Called It (mum made me, she says it was wonderful Hmm). I reckon it was made up anyway.

nemofish · 21/10/2010 11:50

The only ones worth reading

A Child Called It - David Peltzer

Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Touched By Evil - Michele Knight

They may sound terrible but they are good books, especially 'touch by evil' even though the title is dire, it's a very uplifting book. I identified with it heavily, which was a good thing.

All those hundreds of books with titles like 'Daddy please no' make me want to be sick, and I mean that literally. Telling their story may have been therapuetic for the author, however I do not see the merit in reading book after book of this kind. I think it would warp the human spirit in the worst way. If I want to feel better I do my best to help others and donate to a childrens charidee by direct debit.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/10/2010 11:50

Crap like this hides the fact that there are some genuine mempoirs of difficult childhoods which DO have some literary merit, Andrea Ashworth to name one.

ColdComfortFarm · 21/10/2010 11:51

Yup, the rise of the Misery Memoir is pretty grim. Cannot begin to understand how people can enjoy this stuff. I am glad people do not have to feel ashamed of abuse and cruelty, and that we now have a greater awareness of how badly some chlidren are treated (so hopefully, when we see a child who is thin and scared and bruised and foraging in bins, we won't just pretend it isn't happening) but to actively enjoy these books...ugh.

Miffster · 21/10/2010 11:52

I think I saw a shelf of them labelled 'Difficult Lives' or something like that.

They are the Penny Dreadfuls of the day. But people always have enjoyed reading such things, check out the Lives of the saints
(torture, martyrdom) and Victorian melodramas. the British have low and sensational tastes for mawkish melodrama, horror and cruelty.

I think it makes people feel better about themselves. However grim things are, they are a better parent/had a better childhood than that.

DanceOnTheDarkSide · 21/10/2010 11:52

I think it's called Tragic life stories or something.

There are lots of reasons people read these. There are the people who are currently being abused who need to know they aren't alone and there is an end. There are the people who were abused who, in a way, seek out other people who have been thru similar in order to validate their own reactions or actions. There are the people who need to feel like someone has a life that is worse than their own. And there are the people who read them as fiction.

There are some topics i don't like but it would never occur to me to belittle anyone who reads from them.

LittleRedPumpkin · 21/10/2010 11:52

YANBU. I think in ours it's called something like 'Sad Lives'.

I have no idea about this, but I would have thought if you'd experienced abuse and had to walk past a load of those books all staring at you, it'd feel pretty awful.

twinky · 21/10/2010 11:53

Um, I work for Waterstones and the section is called Painful Lives. It used to be part of the Biography section but so many publishers jumped on the misery memoir bandwagon that it ended up being given it's own section. I had a French customer in the other day who thought it was hilarious. I hate it personally but people do buy a lot of this crap. If you think this is bad you should she the True Crime section. Anyone for gratuitous descriptions of serial killers and their antics?

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/10/2010 11:53

I had a shocking upbringing, believe me reading tripe like that is no help.

MrsChemist · 21/10/2010 11:54

The section is called 'painful lives', I believe. My friend works at Waterstones and says it's almost solely mothers who buy them.

They are up at the top of my shit list along with family saga and 'sleb' autobiographies

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/10/2010 11:55

Grin at the French customer laughing at it.

Yes I agree also about the gratuitous violence about true crimes books as well, vile.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/10/2010 11:56

Yes, painful lives.

missedith01 · 21/10/2010 11:57

YANBU - I avoid them and don't understand why they would be read by an adult ... they cannot be pleasurable things to read and they are surely not in any real sense informative as the type of abuses they describe is, while horrific, also entirely known about.

I wonder if there is a place for them amongst young teens ... I know I read a fictional account of incestuous child abuse when I was 12 or 13 (didn't realise what it was about before I bought it, just liked the cover). It was the first time I'd heard of such a thing and it didn't spur me to want to read more but it did nestle in my memory banks in a way that, I don't know, if ayone had attempted to abuse me may have been useful. OTOH, are there any 12-13 year-olds these days that are as innocent as I as then? Perhaps not.

anonymousbrainsnatcher · 21/10/2010 11:57

I have never read one, and I never will. All the titles give me the heeby jeebys and they just strike me primarily as sad on the part of the publishers (as opposed to Sad, though they probably are also Sad if based on real life experiences).

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