I Think Memoirs Nowadays Are Just Completely Self-Involved: Am I the Literary Asshole?

Hello, fellow travelers! It’s Kristen Arnett and I’m back with another stunning episode of Am I The Literary Asshole, the advice column that wants to be friends… with benefits. Give this situationship a chance, huh?

It’s Labor Day weekend and I’m writing to you from the fuzz of too many Miller Lites. Hey they’re practically water! And day drinking is what makes this holiday great. The only thing I’ve done so far today is wash my bedsheets at this residency, but I have yet to actually put them back on the mattress, because I think that seems like a little too much work for what’s supposed to be a day of partying. Looks like I’ll just sleep in the wad of them, much like a beloved pet that climbs into your clean laundry and curls up there for a nap.

We’ve got some real side-eye emojis to tackle here, so I say let’s just get right down to it. Crack open a cold one, buddy, it’s about to get serious:

1) Am I the Asshole if I think that most memoir and essay collections nowadays are just completely self-involved? Like maybe get a therapist or something, journal it out, but you don’t need to write a whole book about it.

I can’t tell if you are trying to prank me with this one, dear reader, but I’m going to treat it like a real question, regardless!

“Get a therapist or something” is an incredibly unhinged reaction to reading essay and memoir collections, let’s get that out of the way upfront. I’m usually able to come to these questions in good faith and find some way to dig us out of the assholery, but you’re making things difficult here. Your tone is really aggressive!

What I will say is that it seems obvious that one of two things has occurred:

• You haven’t read much essay or memoir, maybe just perused one popular viral hot take online, and have decided that’s the whole of these genres

• You HAVE read some essay and memoir and you have taken the wrong things from these books

Either way, this is not a correct viewpoint when it comes to essay and memoir.

I could sit here and list any number of favorites – recent collections that have won awards, opened minds and hearts, broadened discussion around topics that have been thorny for readers – but I think that’s not the point here

“Nowadays,” another word that was used here, implies that you think the memoir and essay collections of the past were doing more rigorous, important work. While it can’t be denied that there was great work done in the past, it would be silly and obtuse to say that there’s not the same high caliber of work available now.

This whole question comes across as old-man-shakes-fist-at-sky dot jpeg. More of a comment than a question, if you will. I think you just wanted to write in to complain. That’s asshole behavior.

You know what? You should save it for your journal.

Moving on!

Let’s open another beer – how about we shotgun this bad boy, I need it after that last doozy – and read our second question of the day:

2) Any advice when you’re bored of… everything? I don’t know if it’s the end of summer blues or what, but I can’t seem to get interesting in anything at all, especially books-related. It all feels like work and I’m burned out. Help?

Summer has come to an inevitable close, my friend. Even Charli XCX has decreed that BRAT is dunzo. But what you say is true: despite the fact we’ve finally reached September, I think many of us are still feeling the heavy weight of August (and the rest of this damn hot summer) squashing us like we’re trapped beneath a gravity blanket. I’ve talked about this for weeks with writer Jami Attenberg: I think the heat has melted our collective brains.

Some of this comes from the fact that there’s a lot of bad shit going on in the world. Yes, it’s true that there is ALWAYS bad shit going on, but combined with this humidity? I think it makes for a potent combination of boredom and fatigue.

You can’t change these factors all on your own, but what you can do is give yourself a break.

There’s a thing that happens when we try to force ourselves to do stuff that we know is good for us – even stuff that we usually like – and that thing is that we completely shut down. It happens to everyone, at some point: you just get tired. You feel done.

So, you know what? My prescription for this is going to be simple, but likely effective. I’m going to say that you can just let yourself float, easy. Head empty, just vibes. Because when you push too hard to overcorrect, your brain decides for you and that decision is usually to turn off completely.

But! When you give yourself a break, you generally find that after a little bit of breathing room, your excitement and hunger for new work and art will come rocketing back. It’s not gone forever. You just need a little vacation.

Treat yourself, friend.

And now I ma gonna treat myself to one last beer! Here’s our final question, and it’s another wild card:

3) What are your thoughts on this whole NANOWRIMO AI business? It feels like real asshole stuff to me, but maybe I’m missing something here (I don’t think I am, though)?

You’re correct, it IS real asshole stuff!

On the off chance you’re out of the loop, here’s a quick refresher:

What pic.twitter.com/0bMB9cMABv

— Casey Stegman (@cstegman) September 2, 2024

“What” is right!

Putting aside the fact that the letter in question even looks as though it was written by AI (and by that, I mean it was written very poorly), the premise is ridiculous.

Why they would move forward with this bizarre logic when nearly every writer I know has yelled from the rooftops about how it’s theft of work? It’s completely batshit.

The whole point of a month of writing… is to write your own work. The fact that they’re using terms like “classist” and “ableist” to prop up their faulty rhetoric is even more astonishing. The work that AI steals from? Includes disabled writers. And a wonderful thing about writing is that people from any class can do it.

This reeks of Big Capitalism. I’m going to take a page from Daniel José Older here and say NaNoFuckNo.

What a journey! Now it’s time for me to collect my empties and pass out on my unmade bed. Join me next time where we dive into more of your questions and I try to figure out if I can fold a fitted sheet.

And please, for the love of beer, send me your questions!!!

Good luck and Godspeed,

Dad

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Are you worried you’re the literary asshole? Ask Kristen via email at
AskKristen@lithub.com, or anonymously here.