Chelsea Boes: Snowed in with memoirists, and why writing a book is like having a baby

Guest Columnist Some books have to be written all alone on your couch in the middle of the night so no one sees you fall apart while you write. And some you have to draft in a coffee shop in broad daylight so your material, mined from trauma, doesn’t kill you without witnesses present. In short, some books — though they wreck family secrets and break hard silences — just have to be born even though it hurts. A lot. I went to listen to a talk by two authors freshly through this furnace of composition: Laura Carney of New York (the middle-of-the-night writer) and Melanie Brooks of New Hampshire (the coffee-shop-by-day writer). The two were set to discuss their new books, Carney’s “My Father’s List” and Brooks’ “A Hard Silence,” at the West Asheville Library last Friday night. Each book tells the true tale of the author’s beloved father and each explores a protected secret. (I won’t tell you the secrets — you’ll have to join me in reading the books.) I footed through the snow at twilight to the library door, where a flyer splashed with Brooks’s face bore the words: Canceled due to weather. From left, Laura Carney, Chelsea Boes and Melanie Brooks at a book signing Jan. 20, 2024, at Malaprop’s. Not to be deterred, the two set up in Malaprop’s book store the next day for a spontaneous signing. They waited behind two little round tables and chatted with me while wrens ate ice out of the cracks in the curb outside. A few customers tread in and out with their golden retrievers, poodles, big hats and scarves. Even the baby sycamore outside the window looked cold. “I think my dad wouldn’t want me to live with a secret,” Carney said, thoughtfully sipping an almond milk cappuccino. Carney’s book tells of her transforming journey through her late father’s bucket list. She said she looked to Brooks’s work for nourishment as she wrote, rewarding herself each time she finished writing a chapter of “My Father’s List” by reading one of Brooks’ chapters, “like running a […]

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