Thinking about

March 24, 2013 at 10:13 pm (Uncategorized)

…summer projects…

The well-worn and tired motifs of:

1. the drug/alcohol/addiction memoir
2. the eating disorder/mental health memoir
3. the portrait of the artist as a young whatever.

I find myself more and more committed to writing an illustrated book this summer. And, in effect, hiding behind these motifs while also revealing/honestly considering myself.

These motifs as cliques that now reveal nothing about the author.

They become their own style of fiction. There is nothing confessional about them.

And yet, as readers, we’re drawn to them because they supposedly lay bare a kind of “truth” we lack otherwise. And so, how do you hide behind the lie as a way of exposing the truth? Is such a thing even possible? Or is this just a descent down a rabbit hole of exchanging signs for meanings for signs for meanings, again and again? And if so, is it worthwhile to pursue?

 

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