Читать книгу Constructing the Self. Essays on Southern Life-Writing онлайн

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On the other hand, the large family about which I wrote in “Make A Joyful Noise” never raised a single voice of objection. Perhaps the lighter side of that essay made it much more acceptable. Or perhaps those were just folks with other, more serious, things to contemplate than what someone had written in a memoir. Or perhaps they didn’t read Summer Snow—which is a distinct possibility. “Make a Joyful Noise” remains one of my favorite essays because it captures a time in my youth when camaraderie was prominent, when church was as much a social institution as it was a spiritual one, and when neighborhoods were truly neighborhoods.

Memoir writing is an adventure, but it is never a journey that one takes alone, no matter how much he or she might believe to the contrary. Writing is about multitudes, for each of us carries relatives, friends, neighbors, teachers, church members, and a host of others around with us in our very DNA. While we can never separate ourselves from them, we can only hope that they do not attempt to claim too much of our lives. Their residing with us, after all, constitutes a shared community that presumably gives the individual the right to express individuality without having to unchain herself from unapproving hoards. Perhaps, as my younger sister said upon completing Summer Snow, “Well, that’s the way you remember things,” it is the sanest response we can hope for from that community.