In a Book I Haven’t Read, I Found Permission to Write

By Jen Gilman Porat

Recently, my newsfeed featured a link to an article from The New Yorker, “Can a Memoir Say Too Much?” Instead of clicking it, my eyes snapped shut as if I’d stumbled across a dead body. The article focused only on Blake Butler’s new book, Molly, but I didn’t know this yet. I feared cancel culture had come for the entire genre.

How could a mere title wound me? It couldn’t. I was primed for defense. I’d been wrestling with the ethical challenges of writing memoir for years.

I stopped writing my book because I’d worried about other people. I didn’t know how to write about a personal journey I hadn’t traveled alone. I feared taking up space that never belonged to me.

When I ditched my pages, I felt like a martyr—what sacrifice could be greater than giving up one’s story?

But I didn’t plan to abandon my book forever or even for this long. What I intended was for a better writer to finish it, preferably some future version of me. I started writing personal essays, thinking the practice would manifest a pristine moral compass. I looked forward to knowing how to embrace the riskiest subjects with zero risk.

Shorter length seemed to guarantee a higher completion rate, but brevity only hastened my arrival to the blurred boundary between self and other. Where did my story end and someone else’s begin? I suspected the only way to locate the ethical line was to cross it, so now, alongside my unfinished book sit unfinished essays.

How would I complete anything amidst so much moral ambiguity ?

Since death promised certainty, I pinned my hope upon it. I didn’t wish to die. I wished to outlive other people. I wanted death to protect me from guilt and potential litigation. I know grief is a more complicated foe than this, but I remained optimistic about all the writing only a funeral can inspire.

Could a memoir say too much? Not if people were dead.

I finally opened my eyes and read The New Yorker article and learned it wasn’t out to destroy memoir. It examined just one book—Butler’s book—but my earlier instinct was partly true: there was a dead body. Butler’s late wife, the poet Molly Brodak, had died of suicide.

My sympathy for Butler extended beyond his loss. If a grieving widower hadn’t earned enough empathy to protect his work from moral scrutiny, what chance did any writer have? If death didn’t grant permission, what did?

While the article, by Alexandra Schwartz, doesn’t pass unequivocal judgment on Butler, it does raise questions. For instance, Butler’s memoir is said to reveal unsavory behavior from Molly, including alleged sexual predation of her students. Since Butler relies on Molly’s private texts and emails, the question follows: Does Butler’s book reach beyond the mutual space of marriage? Apparently, Butler asks the same questions of himself, but does self-awareness overcome trespass?

I thought the details of Molly’s suicide gave Butler permission to write without restraint. In a note left for him, Molly instructs Butler to keep making art. But could someone suicidal give consent? Should Butler have written such a revealing memoir? I didn’t know. I wanted to read the book to find out.

Later that day, I learned of fellow memoirists who’d decided against reading Butler’s book. Since Molly was dead, they reasoned, the writer held all the power—it seemed unfair to reveal disturbing details about Molly, ones she couldn’t disprove from the grave and even if true, were likely due to mental illness. To write about her was to exploit her. To read about her was to exploit her, too.

I rushed to Butler’s defense. Why was I desperate to grant him a permission I couldn’t even grant myself? Not that he needed permission—he’d already published his book. But I felt defensive of his right to do so, and furthermore, my right to read it.

I defended my book purchase with a plan to read Butler’s book as a writer. I even posed questions to guide myself: How does the inclusion of Molly’s texts and emails function in the memoir? Does it increase Butler’s credibility? Or make us dislike him?

I needed Butler’s book in order to understand why I was so deeply affected by it. I felt empathy for his suffering. I also envied his ability to write about it. I intended to witness Butler’s a grief for the sake of self-discovery. I felt despicable.

I became so self-absorbed with my self-absorption, I managed further interrogation of my thoughts:

• I’m drawn to memoir because it affirms my experience. I find myself in other people’s stories.

• If memoirists validate others, should we still accuse them of excessive self-interest? If memoirists build connection for others, should we still charge them with trespass?

• Ultimately, it is the reader who fulfills the memoirist’s redemption. And if the reader performs such a sacred role on behalf of the writer, it follows that the reader also transcends self-interest.

• Memoir creates a mutual relationship between reader and writer, but since it occurs outside of shared space and time, it’s easy to overlook the genre’s intrinsic generosity.

I concluded that the gift of memoir outweighed its risk.

Shutting down my work never redeemed my obsessive self-interest; if anything, my cowardice was selfish. What good is navel gazing if it never reaches another person? If it never completes its transformation into art?

I’d stalled my work and waited to become flawless. But who would ever find themselves reflected in perfection? What a boring book that would be. I wouldn’t want to read it.

I found permission in Butler’s book—a book I haven’t read yet—because its writer made imperfect choices. Isn’t that what all artists do?

And if Butler could do it, maybe I can too.

________

Jen Gilman Porat’s work has been featured in HuffPost, Longreads, and The Week. She’s currently working on a memoir about the contested adoption of a baby girl already placed in her family’s care. She and her husband refused to fight a biological parent, even though their attorney warned the baby would never return to her biological kin. The ethical uncertainty continues to haunt her. Find her on X (formerly Twitter) @JenGilmanPorat.