In about four weeks, Breathless: An American Girl in Paris, my new memoir, will be officially published. So soon, you say, didn’t you publish a book in 2011? Two years ago? What is this, speed writing? Yes and then no.
I’d be thrilled if I were the sort of writer who could produce a new book every two years. Alas, I’m not. The secret to the appearance of my streamlined production is that I began writing the Paris memoir in the late twentieth century―if anyone remembers that far back. For an academic to write a memoir is a guilty pleasure. And so I only felt entitled to devote myself to this project during my sabbaticals. To be sure, sabbaticals are supposed to provide time for research and the preparation of “serious” books. But as luck would have it, my sabbaticals happened to fall right after I had just published an academic book. In that way, my crime remained safely hidden. Not that I wasn’t punished.
I wrote a first draft in the late ’90s; a second in the early aughts; a third and final draft after finishing What They Saved. That modest number does not include many, many rewrites and revisions between drafts. After the second draft I sent the ms. to an agent with fancy credentials who said she “loved” the memoir. Unfortunately her love did not translate into a book contract. The ms. was rejected 35 times over a period of almost three years, a miserable phase during which fell deeper and deeper into despair, hoping, as Gertrude Stein said of her own, that someone would “say yes to the work." Everyone said no, sometimes regretfully, to the tune of a phrase I came to loathe: “not quite marketable.”
The problem with having your memoir turned down is that it becomes impossible―at least this is the case for me―to separate the book from the life. Each rejection of the ms. felt like a rejection of the life I had lived, in a word, of me. I had to reenter therapy and resume anti-depressants to deal with the wounds the refusals inflicted on “me”―the “me” of the memoir, the “me” of the memoir writer. By the end of the therapy, and the 35th or maybe 36th rejection, I concluded that the book should be filed away in a very deep drawer, never to see the light of day.
In order to get over my sense of defeat and disappointment, I turned to a completely different project. I had been doing research on my family history. Thanks to the Internet, ancestry.com, and other archival sources, little by little I pieced together a missing piece of my family story, the origins and immigration of my father’s side of the family. After a while, I started to see a book in the making. I found a new agent for this project who fairly quickly (as if anything ever happens quickly in publishing) found a publisher in University of Nebraska Press.
What They Saved had a nice reception, primarily in the world for which it was written: Jewish readers interested in their family origins. I was quite happy―the book looked great and felt like a new departure―but paradoxically its (moderate) success made me feel worse about the Paris memoir. It pained me to know that the ms. was sitting in a drawer. Maybe its time had come. Maybe with my new agent I could try again.
I steeled myself against rejection. But this time, we proceeded more realistically. No big deal presses, just small independent ones. At the risk of making this sound like a Cinderella story, within a few months, a friend who believed in the book and knew an editor at Seal, urged her to look at the memoir. The editor acquired the book for Seal. I was astounded at my good fortune. Someone finally had said yes.
I'm grateful to have read your post, and understand how rejection of memoir feels like a rejection of the self. I'm beginning pieces of a maybe-memoir, though I must say the little voice inside keeps asking "who cares, really?"
Someone told me that no one is interested in a memoir unless there is sex and drugs and other human tragedies. It made me feel as if no one would care about the world through my eyes. I am so glad that after three decades your book is finally out there. Thirty five rejections sucks. You obviously have a strong constitution to survive all that. Congratulations!
Your experience as an author of memoir parallels my own up to the point of having found a publisher. While I remain confident about my "professional" writing of assigned reviews and articles for the two periodicals I serve as a contributing editor/writer, the memoir is plagued by self doubt...of course one can always self-publish, but the nagging realization that it was not "legitimized" by a "REAL" press lingers...so, I continue to revise, and hope...
Thank you for sharing your struggle to bring this book into the light. It gives those of us who are just starting some perspective and hope. The hurt of rejection must be greater when you are telling your own story. I'm happy that you finally reached your goal of publishing. Look forward to reading the book.
I am so sorry to read that you went through such a hard time facing the rejection of your memoir. I am so glad that you got help with the depression that ensued and I hope that all traces of it are under control and in the past. Thank you for being brave enough to write a memoir and brave enough to write about how devastating rejection of such a personal story can be. It is a cautionary tale for all memoir writers and writers in general. I look forward to living vicariously through "Breathless." Thank you.
I'm happy to have your reactions to my saga. It's always kind of embarrassing to chronicle one's rejections, but the she writes community is one place where it also feels safe to do so.
Thank you for responding. Yes, I've read French Lessons--a pioneering memoir. Mine is a lot less intellectual, even if I am a professor...
Yes--how sweet it is! Your book sounds like a wonderful read. Looking forward to the grand arrival :-D
Congratulations Nancy. I will look out for the book when it is published. I am learning French and have travelled to different parts of France. I love to read memoirs by authors who have spent sometime in Paris.
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I have long wanted to tell the story of the time I spent in France (I worked for a summer on a farm in the Tarn near Gaillac and then studied at the university in Nantes while working as an au pair), but feel more comfortable writing fiction than nonfiction. So, my novel about au pairs and host families in Washington, DC includes some references to au pair life in France, but otherwise there is an untold story within me. It's inspiring to see that you managed to share your story so many years after it took place because now many years have passed since my experience also. If you haven't read French Lessons by your fellow French literature scholar Alice Kaplan, you should read it. And now I must read your book. Thanks for sharing your story.
Ah, "Yes." Never sounded so good, didn't it? Hooray for Seal. They published my short memoir in an anthology on France and I regard them highly for giving us confirmation that our stories are necessary.
I love Seal Press, and I love Paris! I'm so glad you persisted. I will happily order this book!
Thank you for sharing the story of your memoir, Nancy. Rejection is such a tricky beast, yet congratulations on safeguarding the ms. in a drawer, for however long and however deeply, so that at the right time it could re-emerge and give the world your gift of memories. What a dream...to live in Paris. How many of us had/have that dream and never realized it? Count me as one of those many who looks forward to reading about your adventures.