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Memoir of a Memoir-Writing Class, Week Six:
Her Life Ended in Death

By Harris Bloom

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Click here to learn what this column is all about.

Addendum: The Homework Assignment.

I was sitting in the classroom contemplating why the kids won’t let the rabbit try the damn Trix already, when Natalie walked in.

“Hello Harris.”

“Hi, ya know, if we keep being the first ones here all the time, people will talk.”

“Vhat vuld they talk about?”

“You know…you …me…” She looked at me as if I’d asked her the square root of 7,812. “Never mind.”

“I know you are funny but I don’t geet your humor.”

“That’s alright, few do.”

“So vhy you keep telleeng jokes?”

After staring at her for five seconds, I replied, “Good question.”

Juanita came in, greeted us, and sat down.

“You know,” she started, “I think you’ll like some of my other stories. They have accountants in them.”

“Oh really?” Yes, doing accounting crap eight hours a day isn’t enough. I’d like to read stories about accountants, too. I don’t even think a healthy injection of porn would make me want to read about accountants.

“Yeah, I used to go out with an accountant. He used to come by the strip club I was working at.”

“Uh huh.”

“You ver steeper?” Natalie interceded.

“No, I worked as a cocktail waitress.”

“Is guud money?”

“It wasn’t bad.”

“Deed you date zee customers?”

“Just the accountant. I had a rule never to date the customers.” I assumed she couldn’t resist the accountant.

After a few seconds, Natalie responded, “Maybe you made more money if you dated more customers.”

On second thought, put Juanita and Natalie in a story about an accountant and it may be amusing – especially if they collaborated on writing it, and I wasn’t the accountant.

Timmy strolled in, wearing a plain black leather jacket covering a solid blue shirt and unremarkable tan pants.

“What’s with the boring get up? I asked.

“Hey, if Michelle can dress down the whole semester, I can dress down one week.”

“Okay, fair enough, you ready to get critiqued?”

“I think so, I don’t know, I’m kinda nervous.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like anyone says what they really think.”

“That’s true, so what did you think of my story?”

“Loved it.”

“Thanks!”


When Michelle finally arrived, we all turned to her, as if mesmerized by her unusually translucent white linen shirt exposing a black bra. Black tights, white tube socks, and black clogs completed her ensemble.

Unsure how to describe it, I asked Timmy how he would characterize her look.
He looked her up and down and replied, “Revolting.”

Our Lesson of the Day was transition – the devices with which to smoothly move from one topic to another. As an exercise, we were to write a quick story transitioning between these subjects – a pet, a weather condition, a smell, a boa, and a delivery.

Skeletor, who’d lost another five pounds since last week, read hers aloud. It centered on a feather boa and a teddy she’d worn to a Halloween party. At least she doesn’t have pictures, I thought.

Her story ended with, “Next week, I’ll bring the pictures.”


Michelle brought up the differences between exposition and excavation. Excavation is basically a deeper exposition, which is a moment of reflection. She read a short story to illustrate these two points and asked us to pick out which was which. Needless to say, we all got it wrong every time. On making another point regarding these differences, she asked, "Does that seem helpful?"

I passed a note to Gail saying, "No, not at all." Everyone, including Helen The Drama Queen – who usually had a comment about everything - sat stone faced and silent.

The weekly critiques began with Lucy’s unfortunate Christmas visit to her brain-tumored brother. As I mentioned in The Homework Addendum, Lucy was kind of the Edith Bunker in class – a little older, nice, affable…but kind of a dingbat. Here were some of the positive comments –

“Childlike enthusiasm.”
“Simpleesteec.”
“Easy to read.”
“Clearly written.”
“Uncomplicated.”
“Straightforward.”

The reviews reminded me of a toast the sister of the bride gave at a wedding I recently attended. “My sister always had to have the best of everything…the best shoes, the best education, the best clothes, the best dinners, the best, well, everything, she would never do with second rate...and now she has the best husband."

Much like those prophetic words, these class comments could really have been taken in a couple of different ways.

Michelle finished congratulating Lucy on her “uncomplicated” story: “We’ve all shared so many great and sad stories.” I agreed with half her statement.

During the break, those to be critiqued next week handed out their manuscripts. We were up to our second round, and it was my turn again. I handed out “Anterior Motives,” a personal essay of the time I’d (unsuccessfully) attempted to appear on the syndicated reality show Blind Date. Gail’s was titled “London” and described her tumultuous years spent there, while Gunjan handed out another couple of chapters from her memoir, We Are Not Alone.

Break over, we dug onto Timmy’s untitled chapter regarding his gay lifestyle and his partner’s death from AIDS.

Juanita mentioned the difficulty in finding someone with whom to have a “mutual conversation.” I agreed with her sentiment if not her grammar. She also remarked on how Timmy’s chapter just ended with no real conclusion: “It was cruel, like the batteries in my vibrator ran out.” This precipitated a discussion on vibrators, culminating with a comment by Michelle: “Do they still make plug in vibrators? I haven’t seen one in a while.” Everyone shrugged his or her shoulders, except for me. I was too busy throwing up in my mouth.

Helen compared Timmy’s story to A Prayer for Owen Meany. Given the class’s predilection towards hyperbole, I’m sure it was nothing like this, even though I’ve never read the Meany story. She also said it was “Poetic, but not really poetic. Know what I mean?” No, not the foggiest.

According to Michelle, on the other hand, it was too romantic, with too much “fuzzy” stuff. “If I were a better teacher, I’d have some suggestions.” No comment necessary.

She also provided us with the unintentionally funniest comment of the day, if not the course, when in defending Timmy’s grammar, asked, “English is your second language, right?”

“Um, no.”

Well, I thought it was funny.

Last, but certainly not least, was Natalie’s “My Sister,” a story so ridiculous and so poorly written, it was fascinating. Here are a few of my favorite quotes…

“On holy holidays her mother would teach her the best way to slaughter a chicken. You can either wring its neck or chop off its head with a hatchet.”

“I would follow her when she talk to her friends. When she saw me, she chase me with rubber ball and hit me in head with rubber ball.”

“My sister was robust, an important quality for women living on the homestead.”

“Learning German was hard. Especially grammar gave her a headache.”

“It was her job to bring roses to communist teacher. We walked into dark cemetery, next to dead people, and cut off a dozen roses from graves of communist families. This was a trick she played on unsuspecting communist teacher.”

Her last lines read, “For three years, she struggled and suffered a slow, torturous death from starvation. Her life ended shortly after, in death.”

Positive comments ranged from “Interesting” (that was me) to “This has six hundred page novel written all over it.” Upon hearing the latter statement, made by Lucy, I slowly turned to Gail. She glanced at me and we both started coughing.

Timmy said, “I was sorry when I finished…I didn’t want to put it down.”

Jon, the other gay guy in class, stated, “After finishing it, I just had to put it down.” I think he spoke for everyone who ever read a book. Any book.

Even the negative comments somehow managed to sound positive.

Helen: “…as far as suggestions for revisions go, I’d add more details to the story. The reader wants to know more.” Um, not this reader.

I noticed Natalie jotting down everyone’s suggestions. I assumed her page looked something like this –

FIX GRAMMAR
MAKE STORY 600 PAGES
FIX GRAMMAR
ADD DETAILS
FIX GRAMMAR
MAKE SO THEY CAN PUT DOWN WHEN THEY FINISH
FIX GRAMMAR
CHANGE LAST LINES – CHANGE “LIFE ENDED SHORTLY AFTER, IN DEATH” TO SOMETHING ELSE
FIX GRAMMAR

As for Michelle, she declared, "The writing is very clear, really lovely...the story is very compelling. The characters are compelling, as well." She also mentioned, “It’s really great considering English is your second language.” Great for her second language? I felt like I was in a night school for immigrants trying to learn enough to become citizens. I almost expected the class to break out in applause.

Obviously, we were being graded on a curve. And while I had no problem with this theory per se, that certainly wasn’t what I’d signed up for. Some of these people had no business being in even a Beginning Memoir Writing Course without having taken a basic grammar course first. As unintentionally humorous as some of the people and their stories were, I was getting annoyed with the slow pace and the fact I wasn’t learning much. Apparently, Gail felt likewise.

Walking out with me, she said, “I think next week will be my last class.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, I wanna get my critique but besides that, this class is a total waste of time.”

“I can’t argue with ya, but um, c’mon!”

“You present a good argument but I just don’t think I can deal with this anymore. It’s like the Bizarro World episode from Seinfeld. Good is bad, bad is good.”

“Up is down, down is up, I know, but who am I gonna cough with?”

“I’m sure you’ll find another coughing partner. How about Timmy?”

“Timmy’s okay, but he’s no Gail. You can’t leave me stranded in there.” I grabbed her by the shoulders. “You can’t!”

“I can, and I will,” she replied, with an ear to ear smile. “Sorry!”

“Well, we’ll talk more about this next week. If you do leave, you should gimmee your email address. We should keep in touch.”

“Definitely,” she agreed. “I’m sure we’ll be friends forever. Until our lives end in death.”

Next Week, Part Seven – My Futuristical Vision
Click here to read Part One.
Click here to read Part Two.
Click here to read Part Three.
Click here to read Part Four.
Click here to read Part Five.

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Harris Bloom lives and works in New York City. When he’s not contemplating why the kids won’t let the rabbit try the damn Trix already, Harris is hard at work on a short story collection. He can be reached here.

© 2004 Me Three