You Love a Memoir

It’s a week devoted to personal stories

Hi friends,

Hope your week is off to a good start. This week, I’m spotlighting three memoirs. It’s a genre I love — and I appreciate the bravery it takes to share something so personal with the world. These three picks reflect the diversity of the genre, and like I did for heist week, I’m also using this as a chance to spotlight some memoirs from the archive. So, hopefully, even if you don’t think of yourself as a memoir reader, you’ll find something here to pique your interest.

And, now, what to read if …

You Want Something Weird

Rental Person Who Does Nothing by Shoji Morimoto, translated by Don Knotting

In 2018, Shoji Morimoto posted to Twitter, “I'm starting a service... available for any situation in which all you want is a person to be there. Maybe there's a restaurant you want to go to, but you feel awkward going on your own.” The one caveat, he will do “nothing,” so no putting together furniture or weeding your garden. He was quickly inundated with requests to join card games and attend concerts, as well as asks to attend trials, visit hospital patients and even go with a woman filing her divorce papers.

Through these experiences, Morimoto remains a stranger to his clients, committed to listening to them but never offering his advice. The distance between the “rental person” and the client makes it easier for people to open up about secrets they’ve kept for years that they fear sharing with their loved ones. He documents all this and more in his memoir, Rental Person Who Does Nothing, now available in English, with a translation from Don Knotting.

It’s a quirky, surprisingly poignant book that packs a lot into its 190 pages and caused me to think about connection and loneliness, especially in our new, post-pandemic world. If anyone ever launches a similar service in D.C., I think I’d sign up.

Reminder rec: Sounds Like Titanic is one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read, and I think (?) it might be my favorite memoir.

You’ve Struggled with Your Faith

Testimony by Jon Ward

Jon Ward, the chief national correspondent at Yahoo! News, divides his life in two pieces. He spent two decades deeply involved in the evangelical Christian movement and then 20 years outside of it. In Testimony, he blends his experience with reporting on the evangelical church’s relationship with politics.

It’s Ward’s insider-outsider perspective — his father is still a pastor — that makes Testimony shine. So often, when I read reporting on faith groups, especially stories on Evangelicals, it feels like “parachute journalism,” when writers drop in, write a quick story and leave. In contrast, Ward has a lifetime of experience to draw on, giving Testimony a richness and texture that jumps off the page.

That same perspective drives much of the tension in the memoir. Ward remains a believer, even as the church he grew up in embraces the same conspiracy theories he debunks as a reporter. His family and former church friends angrily denounce the media, even as they love him.

It’s a moving reflection on the difference between religion and faith, complex family dynamics and the rise of a political behemoth. Well-worth a read.

Reminder rec: This is not a memoir, but Kelsey McKinney’s God Spare the Girls is a fabulous novel about two preacher’s daughters struggling after discovering their father’s affair.

You’ve Ever Felt Like Your World Was Flipped Upside Down

The Family Outing by Jessi Hempel

Jessi Hempel grew up in what appeared to be a normal, happy middle-class home. But, just beneath the surface, everyone in her family was hiding a secret. In one tumultuous five-year period, starting when Jessi was a young adult, she and her deeply religious father came out as gay, her sister as bisexual, her brother as transgender and her mother as the survivor of a violent experience with a serial killer.

For years after this mass outing, the Hempels maintained cordial, but distant relationships with one another. But, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Jessi, a long-time journalist, began “The Project,” a series of long-form interviews with her siblings and parents about the cost of keeping their secrets, why they felt the need to hide their true selves and their lives after coming out.

Family Outing could so easily feel lurid or exploitative, but instead it’s a searing and empathetic exploration of memory, secrecy and shame. While the Hempel’s story is certainly unique, I think many families will find their attempts to build stronger relationships with each other familiar and inspiring.

Reminder rec: Liz Scheier’s Never Simple is another gripping truth bomb memoir.

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If you want even more memoirs for your TBR, consider Nicole Chung’s work, Wild Game (appropriately named, it’s such a wild tale), Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Me by Elton John or Open Book by Jessica Simpson (my two favorite celebrity memoirs).

I had a really hard time cutting that list down. There’s just so many good options!

As always, thanks for reading! Have a great week.

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