Unlocking Creativity: Elissa Altman Reveals the Radical Power of Saying ‘Yes’ in Memoir Writing
MDH: In the same vein as, “you can’t be disowned twice,” did you say to yourself, “Aw fuck it, I’m telling the whole story now!”?
EA: Well, no. I was still careful, and I went to great lengths to be fair, which I think is very important. But I still had to tell the story more extensively in the second book. Because so much of it was backstory that took place before I was born, I had to tell it from a place of conjecture because I couldn’t tell it with certainty. Vivian Gornick has that great quote: “For the drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.” That’s something that I hold very close. I wanted to see these people as they were, as fully fleshed-out human beings with all their vagaries, rather than the sum total of the actions that might or might not have been regrettable, and that were passed down to me in stories about them. That was very important to me and still is.
