Creative Nonfiction Blog by Brenda Gaines Hunter

My Memoir & My Relatives

Like most writers of memoir, I too was concerned about how my relatives would react to the book. For one thing, I'd like to avoid getting sued. Not that anything in my book is a lie, but I've learned that I have to worry about invasion of privacy as much as I have to be concerned about libel.

It's not possible to write a memoir and leave all of your relatives out or just write flattering things about those you include. So family approval is important. Because my parents come off so badly, my first concern was being sued, especially by Mama's relatives, because she was not my biological or legal mother and her relatives are upset about what happened in my childhood. As a matter of fact, they have taken up sides--some are on Mama's side and some are on mine. That's a shame! No one should have ever found themselves in a position to choose sides. But it happened. So I really expected Mama's relatives' reaction to This Is How It Ends to border on contempt. It has met with the opposite reaction. One cousin read it and said, "That was my aunt." She thought it was accurate and she loved it. She did say that she doesn't think everyone knew just how bad things were for us in Chicago and that someone should have stepped in.

Another cousin, one of my biological relatives, insists on my using her real name in the book. She told me that she is not at all insulted by how she's portrayed--that it's accurate and not mean-spirited.

I left a lot out of the book, partly because I didn't want to needlessly harm anyone. Some family secrets need to remain just that: secrets. Only when I couldn't tell an important part of the story without giving up a family secret or including a relative did I do so. I realized that I'm "privileged" just to know some of the things that I do. Words are powerful and I need to choose them carefully.

The truth of the matter is that I'm so alienated from my relatives that the only way I know how to love them is to not embarass them.

Protecting Privacy

Didn't write any today--nor did I even think about writing anything. During the morning, I went out with a friend and we talked some about writing memoir and respecting personal privacy. I related that in "This is How it Ends," I tried to respect the privacy of the living, but it was not always easy. If a living person was also a major character, it was nearly impossible to protect his/her identity. I ran into that problem with my aunt, because I only have one living aunt. I talked a little about changing her name, but wondered what good that would do. I'm not worried much about libel, because I didn't make up any incidents or character traits. What I am concerned about (and it is a legal issue) is just simply invasion of privacy. Some people have likely put certain events behind them, and I don't want reawaken old ghosts. However, I do want to tell my story as honestly as possible, so some privacy had to be compromised.