It’s a good thing I’m not famous.
At various times in my life, I’ve dreamt of fame. In my teens, I had visions of being a Broadway star – niche fame, I’ll admit. In my twenties, I thought perhaps with the right breaks, I could be a famous musician – a rock star. More recently, I’ll admit that there have been moments where I wondered what life would be like as a famous author and speaker – a far less intelligent (and less interesting) Malcolm Gladwell.
But fame comes at a price. Not only do you have to “pay your dues” to achieve that fame, but you have to pay your debts once you’re there. Those who have achieved even a modicum of fame know it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The spotlight of fame shines a light on the entire person – and perhaps even more brightly on the places you would rather keep hidden. When a star struggles, the chatter grows. When a star melts down, the cameras multiply. And in the end, a whole host of people are there “share your story,” “amplify your voice,” and, more plainly, make as much money off of you as possible.
Fame has always come at the expense of privacy, but never more so than today. Clark Gable may have had troublesome encounters with a few individuals on the street, but he never had to worry that one rabid fan (or disturbed critic) could, having spotted him, broadcast his whereabouts and activities to the entire world in a single tweet. Things are different today. The cost of even minor fame is constant harassment, online trolling, and a fanbase ever more eager for personal details.
As a fairly private person, yes, it’s a good thing I’m not famous.
The Real Reason
But I rarely think about those aspects of fame. No, there’a a much more droll reason for me to eschew fame – to not attain that brass ring of personal publicity. Two words: the memoir.
You see, it used to be that only great leaders and politicians (and those who fancied themselves as such) wrote memoirs. But now, every stand-up comedian, actor, CEO, and Insta-celebrity has a memoir. Stories of difficult upbringing, rising above the fray, overcoming challenges, and ultimately triumphing – this is the stuff of memoirs.
And that’s the problem. I don’t have those stories. Any of them.
If I were ever to write a memoir, it might well fall to the bottom of the New York Times Worst Sellers List. The reviews would say, “This guy had the world’s most average life”…“entirely uneventful”…“the feel-nothing book of the summer.” If I was called upon to write one of those “famous guy” memoirs, the truth would be utterly un-enthralling.
But I have a plan. You know, in case I ever become accidentally famous. That plan – a flawless one, to be sure – is to do one of three things: Lie, rebel, or project.
Lie
Lying in a memoir is certainly not a new strategy. Plenty of people have stretched the truth, fabricated facts, and exaggerated accomplishments for the sake of a good personal story. Any publicist will tell you that a carefully crafted personal narrative is important, and if you have to fudge a few details (or entire chapters) to craft that narrative, what does it matter?
Of course, in my lying memoir, I would have to have some anchors in the truth. I couldn’t, for example, claim to have grown up in Harlem’s tough streets. I could, however, talk about growing up in the hills of Appalachia, and intimate that I lived in the worst of conditions offered in that region – outhouses, rotting floorboards, and one room school houses. Not that I experienced any of that, but, you know, it’s all for the story!
I could never get away with saying that I was abused by my parents (spoiled, perhaps, but not abused), but maybe I could embellish my relationship with my alcoholic grandfather (I did have one of those) and suggest that his negative impact on my life sent me into a world of internal turmoil.
Surely I could come up with enough of these small lies to fill at least a third of the pages of a respectably sized memoir. Then again, I’ve never been a very good liar.
Rebel
Maybe my better option would be to rebel – to refuse to write a memoir. Of course, with a good enough advance on the table, I might not be willing to completely walk away from the offer. So, maybe I could write an anti-memoir – a memoir that was the exact opposite of what memoirs are supposed to be.
I could write all about what could have been, about the privilege and opportunity I’ve had, about the lack of pain in my life. I could write about the missed opportunities which, though presented, I failed to recognize.
Or maybe I could write a down-and-out story for the bourgeoisie. You know, a gilded, hard backed volume with a $10,000 price tag that told tales of a boy who grew up without household staff or caregivers – a guy who went to *gasp* public school, never had a driver, and never studied abroad. I could shock the 1% with my lack of silver spoon and private jet. I mean, sure, the audience would be very limited, but I wouldn’t have to sell many copies to earn a nice profit.
Project
The better path, though, and one that has the most potential, would be to simply project the lives of my family members onto my own life. To be sure, my family has some stories – even some of those high level memoir staples. Poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, adversity, teen pregnancy, divorce, struggle, infidelity, mental illness. It’s all there.
It’s actually pretty crazy how much is there which I didn’t really participate in or suffer from. You see, by the time I came along, both of my parents had married, divorced, then married each other. Their own personal tragedies were largely in their past. My brother and sisters had their trials, which also took a toll on my parents, but I was largely spared the details due to my young age.
By the time I was old enough to really understand all that happened in and to my family, it was, itself, more like reading a memoir than it was any kind of lived experience.
But, I could use it!
In my memoir of projection, I am the central figure in the story of my mother’s turbulent upbringing. I’m the child she always dreamed of having – the one who wouldn’t have to be poor, wouldn’t have to live with the uncertainty of a father consumed with the demons of addiction. Likewise, of course, I would be the apple of my father’s eye long before I was ever born. His dreams of rising above his rural upbringing – of raising a son who would go on to do great things – would round out my story of success.
The lessons learned by my brother and sisters would be my lessons, their struggles making a profound impact on me. If I worked really hard, I could come up with a believable narrative of how I suffered from all of these things, while each of my family members only suffered from their individual trials.
Come to think of it, maybe I could write a good memoir after all. Maybe I should be famous!
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Nope.