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Another very strong motive throughout

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history is bearing witness particularly

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for people who can't speak for

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themselves. writing about people,

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telling the stories of people who have

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been muted or s silenced or even even

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exterminated

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and being the one to tell their stories

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in some of historic form or as

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journalism or as fiction or poetry. I

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think that's a very strong

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very strong impulse. When I began

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writing, the the the field of what women

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would write about was really kind of

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narrow. And when I first published my

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novels, which have a kind of

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sociological or political agenda, I was

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told by some reviewers, quote, I should

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leave the novel of this novel of social

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unrest to Norman Mor. actually that was

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that was a review that I should leave

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this bit this the big novel I should

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leave to people like Norman Maylor which

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I thought was very funny and I thought

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well Norman Mor has his own novels which

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he's doing which are very different from

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what I'm doing women were expected to

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write more about household and domestic

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issues and family life which many women

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do very beautifully but I wasn't I

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wasn't really interested in a domestic

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novel but I'd never really let that

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bother me.

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Always look into the background of one's

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family. If you go far enough back to

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immigrant

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ancestors, you probably find something

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happened, something going on that was

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pretty violent because lots of things

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happened in the 19th century. Today

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things are are a little more reported

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on. Uh you can't get away with murder

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today. In those days you could give a

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baby away. Nobody cared. There were no

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you didn't have to adopt. I mean nobody

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was go there were no social services

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didn't exist. There were no social

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workers. Lots of things went on that are

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not talked about. For instance, I've

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written a lot about domestic abuse and

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uh wife battering and

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uh what we call wife battering didn't

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exist. Domestic violence didn't exist.

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Date rape didn't exist. None of those

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terms that are common today, they didn't

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exist because if you were raped by

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somebody whom you knew, that wasn't

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considered rape. It was probably

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consensual. Well, there was no way you

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could get a police officer to pay any

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slightest attention to anything like

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that. Girls were made pregnant who were

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very young. It's just considered that

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they were consensual or nobody cared. I

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mean, basically, if you were 12, 13

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years old and you were raped, you might

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get married. You have to marry. You're a

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rapist. Nobody cared. Um, there would be

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nobody would make any arrests. Then

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within a family, if a if a father got

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drunk and beat his whole family, the

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police didn't care. Police would not

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come out at all. It sounds a little

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fantastic today, but the police would

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not cross this threshold. They they

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considered domestic violence didn't

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exist. The father could beat his

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children sometimes pretty badly and it

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would be very rare for the police to do

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anything. Now, we lived we lived next

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door when I was a girl to a family that

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was in under the the terror terrorized

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by their own father. So, I was friendly

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with a girl in this with a family like

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that. I've written a lot about this. I

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remember my own father going next door

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and trying to stop this violence and how

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my father almost got killed. This man

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had a gun and my father should not

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really have done that, but he heard all

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the screaming next door. He went over,

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he could have died. And I remember this

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man who was drunk who shot his own dog

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and the dog died in the backyard when I

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was like six years old. So I remember

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all these things going on and there were

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no police officers and nobody would ever

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think of calling the police. So when I

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write about these subjects, they're

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they're really very haunting to me. I'm

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thinking about the girl next door who's

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my friend and she was almost my age. she

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was a year older and she had a family

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and some of those people were written to

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me who who got out you know and that

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girl wrote to me for years and so I'm

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sort of still in contact with that world

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if one can face the darkest elements in

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oneself and things that are secret and

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buried I think the the sto the the

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there's a great deal of power

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I can give you an example example of a

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great work of art

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that is great because the writer was

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writing about a forbidden subject.

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It was absolutely taboo. He could not

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write about it openly. Oscar Wild in the

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picture of Dorian Gay. Now that's a

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novel about homosexuality and the

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repression of desire.

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Oscar Wild was in love with

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some young man. He could not express

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that in any open way. There were laws

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against sodomy that might have actually

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resulted in death. He might have he

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might have been put to death. So the

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novel is a reaction to the taboo. It's a

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great novel. It's actually one of the

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great novels in English literature of

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its time. But it's only I think it's

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only powerful because it's so forbidden

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and you don't know what's going on. So

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Dorian Gay is this very pretty boy. He's

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just so beautiful. He's described as

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beautiful and every man who sees him

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sort of falls in love with him. But but

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Oscar Wild doesn't say that. He doesn't

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use those words. So Dorian Gray is

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seduced by an older man, but

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not in those words. We don't really know

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what's going on. Then Dorian Gay gets

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involved with somebody himself and he

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becomes a predator, but he always stays

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young. Everybody else gets older. He's

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this pretty boy and finally he's like I

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don't know he's like 85 90 years old.

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He's still this pretty boy. And at the

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end of the novel he dies and they see

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his poor this picture up in the attic is

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this elderly wrinkled

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putessescent ciflitic rotted looking

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horrible picture. So that's his soul.

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The picture of Dorian Gay's soul is all

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this rotted

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flesh, but the face of Dorian Gay is

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still this this boy. So that's that's a

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good example of a writer confronting

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taboo, but he knew he couldn't write

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about it directly. Now, if these men

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could have lived o lived open lives and

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and didn't have to be um subversive

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about their writing, would they have

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been as good writers? That's a question.

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I would think maybe not particularly in

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the case of of um Oscar Wild because

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being being

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elliptical gives you a lot of power that

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being headon and direct would not have.

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It's a very interesting paradox. I think

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that the most powerful writing often

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comes from areas that are

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repressed, you know, that one doesn't

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want to talk about. But it's so

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irresistibly interesting for people who

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share that predilction, let's say, or

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share certain obsessions that you you

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will have almost like a guaranteed

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audience of a number of a number of

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people. If you write about certain

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subjects that are have not been written

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about very much because each subject

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that's taboo and and hasn't been

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discussed or is considered vulgar or

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awful or unnatural all those subjects

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relate to many people who share in them

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but they they have no outlet. So

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immediately you'll have a readership

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which may be surprising. So people who

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publish a memoirs on certain subjects

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especially in the past were just

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astonished at how many readers they had.

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Mary Carr writes about very openly about

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her own alcoholism and she writes about

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her parents' alcoholism. So her memoir

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was called is called her first memor is

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called the liars club. That was a

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phenomenal bestseller and I don't think

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Mary Carr expected that at all. That

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kind of openness about drinking and

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about being a teenager and having

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parents who were drunk and then drinking

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herself that hit a that hit a nerve of

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of canandor

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in women young women that probably

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nobody had written about before. In

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every area of something that is

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considered unspeakable, there are many

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people who are waiting to hear about it.

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obesity, bulimia, being feeling that

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one's body is very ugly or or too too

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big or something. All those subjects

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have people yearning to share what they

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feel, but they have no outlet.

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Mainstream literature and conventional

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forms of beauty are so dominant. We have

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uh the image of like the perfect woman

217
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or girl, the perfect man, the the

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physical fitness, mania, a certain

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00:10:02,959 --> 00:10:05,200
healthy attitude toward life

220
00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:07,200
predominates in our culture. But there

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00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:08,720
all these other people don't live up to

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that and they feel maybe resentful, they

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feel intimidated, they feel imperfect.

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So all those people are are yearning to

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have some a spokesperson. One very

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evident example is William Styron wrote

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about depression and darkness visible.

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That's probably 25 years ago. His memoir

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was also an enormous bestseller. I don't

230
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:33,600
think Bill Styin whom I knew had any

231
00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:36,240
idea that so many people would buy his

232
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book. He felt that he was a failure. He

233
00:10:39,040 --> 00:10:42,399
felt he was suicidal. He couldn't write.

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He was depressed. I mean he was so

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00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:48,320
depressed you know that he managed to

236
00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:51,120
write that memoir but he felt he was a

237
00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:53,440
failure he couldn't write fiction and

238
00:10:53,440 --> 00:10:55,760
yet in writing that memoir he became an

239
00:10:55,760 --> 00:10:58,000
enormous bestseller

240
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,279
and I have a friend Jonathan Santer who

241
00:11:01,279 --> 00:11:03,440
doesn't feel like a failure but he lost

242
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:07,360
his wife very very abruptly and Jonathan

243
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:10,880
went into a kind of emotional tail spin

244
00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:14,320
but I suggested to him and maybe other

245
00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:15,680
people did too. But I said, "Why don't

246
00:11:15,680 --> 00:11:17,600
you write about it?" Because there are

247
00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:20,320
no memoirs about by widowers, almost

248
00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:23,839
none. So he did. He wrote uh the the

249
00:11:23,839 --> 00:11:26,480
widowers uh a widowerower's notebook. I

250
00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:29,200
think his book is called a the

251
00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,240
widowers's notebook, Jonathan Satloofer.

252
00:11:32,240 --> 00:11:35,120
And that's become another surprise um

253
00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:38,000
bestseller, I think. And Jonathan has

254
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,560
discovered he gives readings and men

255
00:11:40,560 --> 00:11:42,720
come up to him and say that their story

256
00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:44,800
is like his but they they have nobody to

257
00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:49,920
talk to. So tapping on these um

258
00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:53,040
these secret audiences is something that

259
00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:54,640
is the consequence of writing about

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00:11:54,640 --> 00:11:57,120
taboos.