Unveiling the Power of Selfishness: Kerry Docherty’s Radical Journey to Truth and Liberation
In memoir, the protagonist must change, learn, and grow. Readers of the genre are looking for this transformational journey from the author. Readers will find that transfiguration here, both in the story Docherty is telling and the words she is using to convey that tale. Her writing at the beginning of the book mirrors the vague, unfulfilled yearning the author feels. She tries to articulate her needs and desires — to her husband and to us, her readers. It is a clumsy longing with an ill-defined object. We see and feel her need to create, but she is still asking herself what that creative project might be. This urge to fashion something meaningful out of the disparate threads of her life ultimately drives her into a relationship that both serves as validation of her creative impulses but threatens to undo everything else she has built. She surrounds herself with poets and songwriters, hoping for inspiration, but fails to realize until it is almost too late that, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz who had the power to return home all along, she only needs to believe in herself to be the artist she longs to be.
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