Writers turning memories into memoirs

Roxana Robinson and Dani Shapiro
Jennifer Almquist
Roxana Robinson and Dani Shapiro
Early evening in West Cornwall, twilight descending, the lights of the Cornwall Library glowed as a capacity crowd found their seats to spend the next two hours in the presence of three local authors Saturday, Jan. 27.
Cornwall resident Roxana Robinson was the moderator of the Author Talk in the library, part of a series of scheduled events. She began the evening by introducing the women seated on either side of her: “Dani Shapiro and A.M. Homes are two of our most interesting contemporary writers. Through the lenses of fiction and memoir, they have explored the world as we know it. It’s a choice all writers face — which genre, which form, will best allow me to explore this subject?”
Robinson, the biographer of Georgia O’Keeffe, has written six novels and three collections of short stories. She was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She is an environmentalist, master gardener and scholar of American paintings. Robinson teaches in the MFA program at Hunter College.
The evening in Cornwall felt like a university seminar. Robinson spoke of the transformation of the genre of memoir in the last 20 years following the “blazing memoir” ["The Liar’s Club"] written by Mary Carr, who once wrote of “the sheer convincing poetry of a single person trying to make sense of the past.”
Robinson said, “Dani Shapiro has chosen primarily to use memoir as a means of exploring the world, writing about her rather sensational coming of age, in 'Slow Motion,' the question of faith in 'Devotion,' the story of her marriage in 'Hourglass,' and the revelatory discovery of her biological parent in 'Inheritance,' while writing novels that explore similar themes.”
Shapiro has written four memoirs — "Hourglass," "Still Writing," "Devotion" and "Slow Motion" — and five novels. Her work has been translated in 14 languages. She has taught at Wesleyan University, the New School, New York University, and Columbia University.
Robinson asked Shapiro how she chose her form. She answered: “It is dictated by what happens — a shimmer — and my obsession becomes the theme. Writing 'Slow Motion' was a conscious choice, but I was not in charge. 'Slow Motion' was a curative for my fiction.”
Turning to her right, Robinson asked Homes, “How did you choose memoir?”
She replied: “I was adopted, I was a replacement for a child who had died, and my biological family found me in my 30s. Time and history change things. I think the relationship between self and story IS the story. I was writing about secrets, but I WAS the secret.” She was the product of an affair between a married man with a family and his young mistress. Homes said she had grown up fascinated by George Washington, written about him, and was freaked out to learn from her biological father that she was related to Washington, and her family once owned all the land that is now Washington, D.C. Her prescience was uncanny.
Shapiro added that in psychiatry that is called the “unthought known” — what we know in our bones. She referred to her own “genealogical bewilderment” upon learning that the man she had adored as her father until 2016 was not her biological father. Her true identity had been hidden from her for 50 years. Shapiro marveled that she had written over 100 pages describing a certain male character, and then learned later that her biological father was a dead ringer for the fictional character she had summoned up.
Robinson explained: “A.M. has focused on the sociological aspects of the world, exploring the possibilities of transgressive behavior in her controversial novel, 'The End of Alice,' which was about a homicidal pedophile, and 'Music for Torching,' about subversive currents in the well-behaved suburbs, and now in 'The Unfolding,' which imagines a group of rich, entitled men who can’t tolerate the election of a black man for president, and who set out to undermine the American system in response. Her memoir, 'The Mistress’s Daughter,' explores her own discovery of biological parents who intrude on her life in an unsettling way.”
Homes, who teaches creative writing at Princeton University, has written 26 books that have been published in 22 languages, and is the writer/producer on television shows including "Mr. Mercedes" and "The L Word." She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She collaborates on book projects with artists including Carroll Dunham of Cornwall and has written the libretto for three operas. Her newest book, "The Unfolding," is oddly prescient as she began writing it when Obama was elected, and it centers on a character known as “the Big Guy” who organizes a group of wealthy Republicans to form the “Forever Men,” a secret cabal who will do anything for their species to stay in power.
The friendship between these three women was palpable during their dialogue. They know and respect each other’s writing. The sensibility of Homes and Shapiro are polar opposites, yet they write about the impact of their parent’s decisions, and family secrets, on their own emotional, psychological development. Homes is irreverent, witty, and creates “the least likely characters, and then I inhabit them — I want my characters to be someone I would like to spend time with.”
“A.M., you make people love your unsavory characters, they have a strange dichotomy,” observed Shapiro, and Homes replied, “Dani, your characters are beautifully struggling with that, but they are way more tender.”
Each author asked questions of the other. “Dani, you are renowned in the mentoring teaching world, what was the evolution of that?" Shapiro answered that moving up to the country changed everything and she began running writing classes, creating a creative bond with her students that has continued for 25 years. “I teach at Kripalu once a year — real generative work with small groups with prompts, and in 2007 started the Sirenland Workshop in Positano, Italy." Shapiro’s podcast "Family Secrets" has 30 million downloads.
Homes: Writing a memoir is like doing surgery on yourself.
Shapiro: Writing a memoir is not cathartic, it drills down your own story more deeply. What haunts us is part of our DNA.
Homes: Dani, how do you translate memory?
Shapiro: Annie Dillard said follow the line of words.
Shapiro: Dolly Parton said, “figure out who you are, and do it on purpose.”
Shapiro and Robinson will be in discussion again on Feb. 13 at The White Hart Inn in Salisbury at 6:30 p.m. to discuss Robinson's newest novel, "Leaving."
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Douglas Library | 108 Main St.
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North Canaan Fire Co. | 4 E. Main St.
3rd Annual Fly-In
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Triumph Airfield | 547 W. Main St.
Canaan Railroad Station Museum
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New England Accordion Connection
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St. Martin of Tours | 4 Main St.
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6 p.m.
Rosa setigera is a native climbing rose whose simple flowers allow bees to easily collect pollen.
After moving to West Cornwall in 2012, we were given a thoughtful housewarming gift: the 1997 edition of “Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.” We were told the encyclopedic volume was the definitive gardener’s reference guide — a fact I already knew, having purchased one several months earlier at the recommendation of a gardener I admire.
At the time, we were in the thick of winter invasive removal, and I enjoyed reading and dreaming about the trees and shrubs I could plant to fill in the bare spots where the bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose and other invasive plants had been.Years later, I purchased the 2011 edition, updated and inclusive of plants for warm climates.
On the cover of the new edition, a quote from Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post boasts, “Michael Dirr is the oracle of ornamental horticulture. I trust his judgements implicitly.”I heartily disagree with Mr. Higgins:I blame this book — and my poor use of it — for some of my worst tree and shrub choices.
I realize some readers might find this declaration inflammatory. The book still occupies a place of high regard among experienced and novice gardeners alike, so please allow me to explain.
In addition to giving the reader his opinion on the aesthetic worthiness of the woody plants included in the book, Mr. Dirr makes good on the book’s title with a review of each species’ hardiness. What makes a tree hardy?It thrives in its intended site, resisting disease with leaves and bark not readily eaten by insects and other critters.
Non-native plants make up the majority of the recommended hardy plants in the book.And here is why:Native trees and shrubs are, by evolution’s design, food source and host to our native fauna — critters large and small. There is no substitute equal to the fauna’s co-evolved flora.A native caterpillar cannot eat a kousa dogwood leaf, as it has not evolved to digest it.Non-native plants seemingly have the advantage if the lens we look through values pristine, uneaten leaves.
In the days when there were sufficient thriving ecosystems to maintain local habitats, a non-native specimen tree here and there was just fine.But where we live in Northwest Connecticut, our woods, meadows, marshes and other natural areas have, for a couple of decades, been severely compromised by invasives that have almost entirely removed the food sources for native insects. It is up to us — now — to plant native plants to save the food chain.Without insects, not only will native animals die, but human food sources will also be at risk.
The security of our food pipeline seems a worthy exchange for some caterpillar-eaten leaves — and to be clear, we’re not talking about non-native infestations such as spongy moth, but rather native caterpillars, which are the singular food source for nesting birds.
My issue is that, in being a trusted source for plant selection, Dirr’s book should give equal — if not prioritized — space to information on ecological impact.For example, it would be good to know when selecting a tree, that a native oak provides food and other ecosystem services to more than 400 native animal species, while a native tulip poplar supports fewer than 30 — though that includes the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Including information on the birds and insects attracted to a given plant would enable reader to weigh these factors in choosing what to grow.But this information is not mentioned at all.
Dirr makes no mention of the role some of these plants have played in the degradation of our natural areas — an omission that is highly relevant, as many of the plants featured in his book are, in fact, invasive culprits. Plants like barberry, porcelain berry and tree of heaven are showcased for consideration alongside native plants without recognition of the devastating infestations they can manifest. Tree of Heaven is now responsible for hosting the spotted lanternfly, which is devastating crops.
Similarly Euonymous alatus (winged euonymous) and Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi) — two highly invasive plants touted in the book — have been banned or are close to being banned for sale from nurseries in the state of Massachusetts. To his credit, Dirr does point out the invasive nature of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet), calling it “a terrible and devastating escapee that terrorizes floodplains, fencerows and even open fields, reducing native vegetation to rubble.” Yet Japanese honeysuckle gets an understated warning, with Dirr describing this massively invasive shrub as “bullying their way into understory and open areas.”
The latest edition of Dirr’s book devotes seven pages of copy and photos to various Berberis species, about which Dirr waxes poetic. He notes the addition of “30 new cultivars” in the latest revision and complains that “this species is under assault for its aggressive invasive nature.” He refers to Berberis thunbergii — Japanese barberry, the most invasive of them all — as “the species of major importance in garden commerce.” This plant has already been outlawed for sale in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hamphsire and Maine.A few weeks ago, a bill was passed in Connecticut recognizing the harm of a broad group of invasive plants. Under this new legislation, barberry will be phased out from sale or transport by October 2028.
In understating the invasive nature of many non-natives and de-prioritizing the importance of native species, Dirr’s widely used reference may be partly responsible for many a devastated woodland, forest, meadow and marsh in New England — if not across the U.S.Certainly, the evolution of species, and scientific knowledge about the environment, is changing faster than new editions of books can be printed. I can only hope that if a new edition of Mr. Dirr’s reference book is in the works that it will account for this criteria we now know to be vital in plant selection.
Which brings me back to that quote on the cover from The Washington Post and the larger issue it suggests:Should “ornamental horticulture” get a pass when it comes to ecological survival?I think we can agree — it should not.The consequences are simply too destructive.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Foxtrot Farm & Flowers’ historic barn space during UAW’s 2024 exhibition entitled “Unruly Edges.”
Art lovers, mark your calendars. The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) returns July 17 to 21, with an exciting lineup of exhibitions and events celebrating the cultural vibrancy of the region. Spanning eight counties and over 130 venues, UAW invites residents and visitors alike to explore the Hudson Valley’s thriving creative communities.
Here’s a preview of four must-see exhibitions in the area:
1. Wassaic Project (37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic)
“So It Goes” is a powerful group exhibition curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick. The title, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” signals a reckoning with how we process the horrors of the world. Through play, reflection, and immersive scale, 43 artists respond with urgency and imagination. Installations can be seen throughout the town of Wassaic at Maxon Mills, Gridley Chapel, and Luther Barn, each space transformed by this deeply thoughtful show.
2. Foxtrot Farm & Flowers (6862 Route 82, Stanfordville)
“Queer Bestiary,” a group show curated by Charlotte Woolf, is inspired by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s book “Forest Euphoria.” The exhibition investigates queer ecology and human relationship to land through the work of 10 artists using painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography. The exhibit is accompanied by a variety of interactive experiences including tattoo pop-ups, karaoke, book readings, and pick-your-own flowers.
3. ChaShaMa North/ChaNorth (2600 Route 199, Pine Plains)
ChaShaMa North (ChaNorth) will have open studios all weekend and has partnered with Paradice Palase, a platform for emerging artists, to mount a site-specific sculpture exhibition featuring 20 artists entitled “Alone, You Are Heard.” On Saturday evening, July 19, stop by for Weird Music Night for an audio-visual synthesis of experimental music, performance art, and unexpected happenings. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience an eclectic lineup of acts that redefine the boundaries of performance.
4. Millbrook Arts Project(3 Friendly Lane, Millbrook)
The Millbrook Arts Project is hosting a curated exhibit entitled “Generated Utility” at the newly renovated gallery at the village library. The exhibit will feature the work of artists Natalie Beall and Kathy Greenwood. Additionally, visitors will have access to 12 open artists studios across town. The weekend culminates in a free outdoor concert on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at the Millbrook Bandshell. Enjoy the Indie-Folk sounds of Strawberry Runners and She Keeps Bees.
For more information and a complete list of participating artists and locations, visit: upstateartweekend.org