I'm reading the book The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison right now.
This is importnat because it signifies my latest craze: the memoir.
As you know if you've read the about me in the corner, I'm a full time college student. My major is English with a concentration in creative writing. Well, as you may have guessed from my blogging adventures, I have a love of non-fiction. I recently got some advice from my fiction professor: He said when you find a genre you want to write, you need to gather up about ten books from said genre and read the FIRST CHAPTERS. Apparently, this is a good way to learn the "conventions of the genre."
Well, ladies and gents, I have decided to write memoirs. I have had a pretty nutso life in my few years of living. I'm 26 with two kids, on my second marriage, and my first marriage was to a man who couldn't keep his hands off me . . . in that bad way.
All this brings us to the point.
I'm currently reading the Kiss by Kathryn Harrison.
Can I just say . . . WOW. Okay, so this is a book about a twenty year old girl's consensual, incestuous relationship with her absentee father. I've been reading a lot of articles about this memoir on the internet, as well as the feedback of a lot of others who commented. I disagree with a lot of what they say.
1) A lot of people believe since Harrison was twenty when the affair started, she was not abused. I disagree with this, although maybe not in the legal sense. What she underwent was certainly abuse because he was in a position of power over her as her father. The actual relationship, how often they saw each other, all that is irrelevant. He took advantage of her desire to be wanted by her parent, especially considering she was pretty much abandoned by her mother, as well.
2) People feel as though this shouldn't have been written about, that it crosses a line. Again, I'm on the other side of the argument. In memoir, nothing is off limits. If she would have written about her life and excluded this, what a lie it would have been! You can't write authentically about your life and ignore the major factors that formed your identity.
My final comment is that, while I can't argue how disturbing the subject matter is, the book is written in such a fluid, poetic form of prose that I am having trouble putting it down. When I try to fall asleep, I think about it. It's interesting and compelling and the style makes the content . . . palatable.
I recommend this read to anyone who wants to read a well written piece of non-fiction.
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