Dana pulled her arm back, and was just about to let the paperback fly across the room when she stopped herself, took a deep breath, and forced herself to lower her arm. She settled for tossing the book onto the other side of the couch.
“What did that book ever do to you?” asked Dana’s wife, Kiara, from her position on the floor. Dana never understood why Kiara liked to sit on the floor. She claimed it was so she didn’t have to worry about getting food on the furniture when she ate in front of the TV, but Dana still thought it was weird.
“I’m so sick of all these memoirs that end in morals, especially since they’re complete bollocks.”
“You’ve been watching English TV shows again, haven’t you?”
Dana ignored the comment and continued having her conversation with herself out loud. “Take this book. Do you know what it’s called? It’s called ‘Why Crime Does Not Pay.’ It’s a memoir this woman wrote about her life of crime, but she died an incredibly wealthy woman!”
“Sounds like the greatest con she committed was writing the book.”
That stopped Dana in her tracks for a minute as she pondered that possibility. “You might have a point. Although if the publishing industry back then was anything like what it is now, I doubt she had any say at all in the title. Some editor probably came up with it for her.”
“So, are you railing against the title, or the publishing industry?”
Dana sighed and leaned backwards against the back of the couch. “When you put it like that, I’m not sure. What really frustrates me is the fact that, for so long, these memoirs were required to have morals at the end. I never thought I’d be grateful for the publishing industry as it is now, but I guess I’m saying I’m glad we don’t have that requirement anymore.”
“Who says we don’t?”
Dana was silent for a long moment as she processed this. “Are you saying it is required?” Since Kiara worked in publishing, she would know.
“You know I don’t work with memoirs. Honestly, at this point I’m just arguing with you for the sake of arguing with you. But seriously, it’s totally possible that they ‘expect’” she used her fingers to put air quotes around the word, “their memoir authors to have a moral at the end of their story. Given the way publishing works today, it’s probably not written in the contract, or even explicitly stated, but I would not be even a little bit surprised to learn that editors, shall we say, nudge their writers towards a certain morally pleasing conclusion to their books.”
“Morally pleasing for whom?”
“WASPs, of course.”
“Yeah, that was actually a rhetorical question.”
“It can be hard to tell with you sometimes.”
“Thanks?”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. Just that you’re hard to read sometimes, and I don’t like to make assumptions.
Dana had to admit that was fair, but rather than admit it out loud, she decided to keep the conversation moving. “So, is it as obvious in our memoirs today as it is in the memoirs of the early 20th century and earlier? Will I be able to hit it with my eyes closed?”
Kiara shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really read memoirs. That’s your forté.” It was Dana’s forté, but only when it came to historical memoirs. For the first time, she started to think it might be time to venture into modern memoirs.
To be continued…