to read "misery lit"

[shewhowines]

Is that the correct term for it?

I have just finished reading a book, about someone who suffered childhood abuse, that somebody passed on to me. I know there is a hatred of such books by many people.

Whilst it would not be my first choice of book, I must admit that I "enjoyed" it. It made me sad and I did actually have tears in my eyes at one point.
Reasons I have occassionally read them/watched sad films.

1. It is important that people are aware that this sort of thing went on/goes on.
2. It is important that people have some ability to empathise (although I know you obviously can't really understand unless you have gone through it yourself).
3. I get a positive emotion from it, in that I feel grateful for the life that I have led and feel very lucky. There for the grace of God goes I...

I am prepared to get a flaming for this, But I am genuinely interested in why it is supposed to be so popular, and what other people think of it.

Cailin it's not that "normal" people don't want to touch your story, it's that they have the decency to not use the abuse of young children to try and make them feel better about their own sorry, dull lives or even worse, seedy by proxy titilation.

I'm sorry you can't see this and find it hurtful.

The people I know at work who pass these books around seem to read them for titillation.
They love all those 'Take a Break' etc mags too, which smack of freak shows to me.

Could you link to the article hully?

Of course publishers only care about money! Publishing is a business!! The way people are talking about publishers you would swear they grabbed people off the street and forced them to write these books. Abuse survivors aren't idiots who need protecting from evil publishers.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jun/15/childrensservices.biography

It's moderately interesting

I have read a few by foster carers-Cathy Glass and Casey someone and quite enjoyed them.I can't stomach the ones about horrendous abuse although I read some Torey Hayden years ago before she became popular.
The best childhood memoir I have read is Bad Blood by Lorna Sage which is very literate and thought provoking.Interestingly part of the first chapter was the extract for comprehension on an exam paper I saw recently.

I liked Lorna Sage too

The link doesn't work.
Again jack, you are implying that my story wouldn't be read by decent people. Because of course my story will taint them.

No I can't understand reading this at all.

I have a friend who 'loves' this sort of thing and 'gloats' over it really trying to share the misery.

I am not even sure half of them are true or just jumping in the bandwagon.

Many people who have been abused just share with loved ones/ therapists or simply not at all.

It works when I click on it

I thought Bad Blood was excellent too. Must have a re-read.

Hully did you watch Schindler's List?

It just says it's an outdated link when i click it. What's bad blood about?

I don't understand people who take it to extremes.

Fair enough reading the odd misery-lit book but if you find yourself making a beeline for that section and actively searching for titles like "Please Mammy Don't Poke Me With Your Knitting Needles Any More" then I think there's something a bit off...

Shewho- you've indirectly hit on one of the biggest problems abuse survivors face - the fact that abuse unlike a seripus injury or other life changing events is considered private and intimate and not a suitable topic for conversation. That silence around abusecan be more damaging in some ways than the abuse itself as it creates a sense ofshame and secrecy.
See if i had a massive car crash i could tell everyone about it and they would want all the details and be interested in and amazed by what i went through. No one would be considered weird for wanting to know all the details.

I think the reason is mainly we feel guilty for being interested because we don't want to feel we are invading peoples misery. It's done because we respect survivors and don't want to add to their misery. It's not done because we feel it is shameful. We are trying to protect you, not to make you feel bad.

You have made me reconsider my attitude callin. Thanks

Thebody- when you say many who have been abused just share it with loved ones are you saying that's the way it should be?

No, I haven't seen it. Not out of choice, just haven't

Shewho - i'm glad. With any big traumatic event it's normal for people to talk a lot about it to make sense of it. With abuse many people never get a chance to talk about it and that can make it fester and eat away at you. It was only when i talked, in detail, about what happened to me that it started to lose its power over me.

I wish I could articulate it better, but for me it's not necessarily the subject matter that I find uncomfortable but the way it's treated; the formulaic script with excessive gratuitous details and the way it seems to exploit someone's pain.

It just feels wrong to me as a reader, and yet...

I find books like this absolutely inspiring. The author was abused in the travelling community for being gay and the story can make uncomfortable reading at points, but didn't make me feel like a ghoulish voyeur.

Do you think it just has to do with the quality of the writing?

Poppy - there's no doubt that some of this genre is very badly written. But that's true of any genre. It seems that it's the subject matter people object to. Basically abuse survivors shouldn't write about what happened to them in case paedophiles read it.

"Basically abuse survivors shouldn't write about what happened to them in case paedophiles read it."

Well if they abuse survivors can live with that idea, I imagine so can I.

I still struggle to understand why, as a reader, you would actively choose to read something like Esther described in Hully's link. Maybe if you have experienced some abuse yourself this is a "safe" way to explore those feelings, but otherwise it just smacks of schadenfreude to me.

Rogue "they".

This has been a really interesting discussion.

What I am interested in, is that child abuse is still viewed as a "taboo" subject to a certain extent, these books are very mainstream in terms of their availability and popularity, in a way that real crime books generally aren't. Why is that?

Why does anyone read about anything poppy? My dad loves books about weaponry, i couldn't imagine anything duller. Stories of childhood, even horrible ones can be interesting. I like biographies because i like to see how people have been shaped by their life.

I think I agree with bully and pag on this, with huge respect to cailindana.

I think how people deal with abuse is very personal to them, I choose to barely acknowledge it, yet others speak of it, and some would write memoirs. I understand that totally.

What I don't understand is the prurience and the cynical nature of the publishing industry around this genre as a whole. I think it does tap into a dark element of someone's psyche. Like Hullys friend who is interested in the holocautst. I feel the same about true crime TV shows (XP once watched a crap documentary about Fred West, it was hideous, I wouldn't choose to watch that and yet there are whole TV channels devoted to true crimes and murders like this).

I dislike the way that these misery lit books are marketed, all the same or similar typeface, black and white photo of a sad looking child, structured the same. There are genuine stories, beautifully written (thinking mainly of Andrea Ashworths Once In a House on Fire) and they are lumped in with the rest some of which may be of dubious origin.

Cailina, I read the post from Shew, really really made me think.

Of course it's distasteful that some people seem to wallow in other people's dreadful experience of abuse and I guess it's a distaste of that is what I meant.

Of course survivors have the absolute right to share their stories.

I suppose it seems so bloody dreadful that to read about it, like you would a Marion Keys seems disrespectful.