4 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Judge an Author By Their Memoir

Life lessons learnt from reviewing a stranger’s memoir

I went into the workshop bristling. I had just read 3 chapters from a draft of a memoir from some jerk who had written about fatherhood. Apparently, it had been a big surprise to him that having a kid would change his life.

Between beautiful prose, he went into painstaking detail of his inner psyche the first few months as a father. He had freaked out. How was he, barely an adult (at age 40), supposed to take care of a living being? Wasn’t he supposed to drop the kid off at daycare and let the rest of the family take care of the little one while he resumed his life largely uninterrupted?

I am so glad I actually got to meet the author, Jeff, who is now 60. During the writing workshop, in which we took turns giving feedback on someone else’s short story and then his memoir, I was in such a defensive mode that I wasn’t able to make sense of contradictory information: his mild, pleasant demeanour. His thoughtful, thoughtfully-worded feedback. His graciousness.

I bit my tongue as others told him how they liked the story and found it relatable, how they defended him against the judgmental neighbours. He wrote a harrowing, beautiful tale of raising his son, Ethan, with special needs, against all medical odds, and I, like the others, could sympathize.

There was a lapse in conversation, and I spoke. As much as I rooted for baby Ethan and his father, I ended with what I thought was a diplomatic way of saying what I meant: “I’m not sure I would’ve made it past the first few pages if I picked this up in a bookstore.” Because the main character seems like a jerk.

Then came some of the softer, almost reluctant agreements. “It was difficult to sympathize with the main character” — a nice way of removing the author from the story.

Here are 4 reasons why I’m so glad I kept reading, but more importantly, kept my ears open to hear what Jeff said next.

You Might Not Be in a Good Headspace

This was at the start of the pandemic. My writing coach had reached out to a few people asking if we’d like to meet over Zoom. I had been cooped up at home, barely speaking to anyone besides my wife and brother, and was convinced my “social” muscle had atrophied beyond repair.

The other day I went to Dunkin Donuts and could barely order 2 lattes. I was so shocked I was talking to someone not in my immediate family that my brain turned to slush.

Every self-help guru from Mel Robbins to Jordan Peterson emphasizes that to serve others, we need to first take care of ourselves. Are you in the best position to judge someone’s work? Have you slept? Ate? Had your morning coffee? Beyond these basic needs, have you taken care of your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being? It’s a Catch-22, I know, because for many of us reading is our form of escape.

But if you’re going to be giving someone else advice, you really need to dust off and adjust the lens through which you see the world. You don’t want it to be crusty with your last fight with your partner, or warped by a workplace spat. Reading is interactive, yes, and readers can’t help but bring themselves to the story — that’s what makes the whole process of writing and reading an exciting dialogue.

But as a workshop partner, you should attempt to minimize the effect of temporary circumstances on your reading. Your friend’s writing may not be published until years later when our collective mindset is (hopefully, compared to 2020) in a very different place.

Alternatively, you could be frank, as many of us chose to be, and say, “Hey, that’s what I think, but I also haven’t been sleeping well this week. Or year.”

You’re Not as Clever as You think

This is similar to point #1 but in a more long-term sense. Your temporary circumstances may put you in a bad place to give (relatively) objective feedback. Still, your long-term values, beliefs, and characteristics can also affect or even impede your reading of a story.

Again, your workshop buddy will invariably encounter all sorts of readers once their work is public. Still, it’s incumbent upon you to address and correct for known biases to give your workshop buddy a fair assessment.

Jokes are something I’ve struggled with my whole life. I’ve watched how people can say the most demoralizing, humiliating things and get away with it by tacking on an, “I was just kidding.” I’ve become suspicious of joking.

More often than not, jokes feel like passive-aggressive attacks. It’s a suspicion that has unfortunately affected personal relationships with people who deeply love me; though they’ve been accommodating, I’ve reached a point where I want to grow past this, for my own sake and theirs.

I totally forgot this while reading Jeff’s memoir.

Thanks to my stewing, I was unable to catch what were clearly jokes. I missed the self-deprecating humour in his most overt passages. In fact, it didn’t even cross my mind until, during feedback, I pointed out one passage in particular, and the writing teacher gently suggested, “Well, I think the strong wording is a hint that this was a joke.”

After reading it through a second time, right after the workshop and before sending my annotated Word document over, I went back over my comments and had to weed them out. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and a little baffled at how I could have missed the humour.

To be fair to myself, there’s certainly reason to be concerned with “jokes” in this increasingly polarized world. We’ve all probably seen at least one post where we can’t tell if the writer is actually a bigot or, we hope, trolling bigots.

But at the end of the day, I forgot to correct for a bias. Certainly, other readers like me may toss aside Jeff’s book in the future, and he ended up taking my feedback as well as others’ by rearranging the chapters to open with a more likeable Jeff, but as a workshop buddy, it was my duty to bring a clear head to the table.

People Change

My friend Jeff wrote the book in his sixties looking back on his younger self. As such, the book was brutally honest about who he used to be: self-absorbed and naive. The memoir recounts his journey of growth and transformation via fatherhood.

People don’t change. As much as I don’t want to believe it, the cynical side of me has convinced me it’s true. I’ve come to accept that there are family members who will not apologize after decades of pleading, cajoling, and confronting. Some co-workers will not let go of their Sinophobic superiority (no, I’m not Chinese, but it doesn’t matter to certain people) despite workplace harassment claims.

And yet — people do change, even if slowly, even if imperceptibly. Family members may not apologize, but they certainly tone themselves down, co-workers may never change their worldview, but they can learn to stay away. Both find little ways to extend olive branches, like sending a funny article or giving praise on a project. And those are pretty bad scenarios, to begin with.

Looking back on myself, I’ve certainly done or said things years, months, or even days ago that I cringe at. 2020 has been a catalyst in personal growth and resilience. The core of who I am hasn’t changed, but the edges have become softer and more resilient at the same time.

Jeff changed. So have I. Who am I to judge his journey?

You Don’t Know the Whole story

You’re not as clever as you think. I write this as a reminder to myself just as much as to you. I used to think I had people all figured out that my “bully-dar” was sensitive and accurate. I could spot patterns where no one else could.

I am wrong. My intuition is not complete hogwash, but it’s fallible. I’ve successfully sussed out bullies, been ensnared by manipulative people, and become close friends with people I thought were “mean.”

I’ve judged people, especially online, swept up in a whirlwind of what I thought was “activism,” only to realize I was in the wrong when I dug into the details. That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate causes that social media brings attention to, but having at least one friend at the brunt of a misguided campaign really humbled me. If I hadn’t known his side of the story, I, too, probably would have joined the swarm against him.

I was wrong about Jeff. The memoir was not, as I had thought, an attempt to glorify himself for doing the bare minimum as a father. The memoir was a beautiful homage to his late son, Ethan, who, after beating all the medical odds, died in a tragic accident.

Jeff had kept notes throughout Ethan’s life, thinking they were primarily for himself. He’d told himself he would never publish a book, that he would respect the privacy of his son and their family. He took Ethan’s last look, the last squeeze of his hand as a sign that his story needed to be told, as a sign that it was his responsibility to do so.

How could I not feel like guilty after that?

It completely upended my understanding of the book and what Jeff was trying to do. Again, as a workshop buddy, this may have been valuable information to Jeff, but as a citizen of the world, it was a slap-in-the-face reminder that I don’t know anything about anyone, even with three chapters of a memoir (much less with 280 characters).

Seems obvious, if you think about it. I’m still finding out things about my wife, and we’ve been together for 5 years. My brother surprises me, and we grew up together.

As a workshop buddy, it’s fair game to give objective, level-headed feedback. “I found the protagonist, unlikable.” “The love interest fell flat for me.” At no point, especially when workshopping a memoir, should this devolve into name-calling and degradation.

Outside of the workshop, puttering about in the world, we need to stop judging each other so harshly — or at least reach the end of the book before doing so. Or admit our judgment is based on partial information and accept the possibility we could be (willingly) wrong.

I’ve shared these reasons mostly from the perspective of a workshopper, in the specific context of reviewing only part of an unfinished manuscript. Still, the lessons apply for all of us as citizens in this increasingly loud world. We shouldn’t be quick to draw conclusions before asking:

1. Am I in a good headspace to read and listen objectively?
2. Have I accounted for personal biases that might affect or even impede my understanding of what the author has written?
3. Have I reminded myself that people change and that the person in the story, even if it’s the author themselves, has probably changed, even since writing this down?
4. Have I reminded myself I don’t know the whole story yet — that’s why I’m reading?

Jeff is a good friend now. I invited him to my 30th (Zoom Dance) Birthday Party, and I’ve pre-ordered his memoir. Based on what I’ve read, I can’t recommend it enough.

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