Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 246

You guys,

Ever since I changed the name of my podcast from Bleecker Bombs to Memoir Snob, I get the occasional email from a publicist who is promoting a new memoir and a new author who would be “a perfect fit” for my show.

These messages always feel like spam and I’ve never responded, until a few weeks ago when I received an email about The Housekeeper’s Secret by Sandra Schnakenburg. Here was the synopsis:

“When Lee Metoyer is hired to be the new housekeeper, she has no idea that she’s about to become the anchor to a family in an abusive patriarch's home, setting a mystery in motion that will take decades to uncover. At the age of 72, Lee falls ill and on her deathbed asks Sandy to write her story. The only problem is, Sandy doesn’t know the story.”

I responded that I was intrigued and I’d love to read the book, and from there I was quickly sent a hardcopy. I had no intention of interviewing someone on my podcast if I didn’t like the book. My bar is high for a good memoir. Too high, according to Sam. He finds my analyses annoying, like a film critic who can’t understand a high audience score. “I don’t even like the movies that film critics like,” he said to me one night after I said I couldn’t continue reading a book because the writer kept writing her feelings. “You really are a snob,” he’d said.

But I read The Housekeeper’s Secret—flew through it, actually—and as soon as I finished, I emailed the publicist and said I’d love to have Sandra on the podcast. Three days later we sat facing each other over a Zoom call. Sandy told me how she made the transition from a successful career in finance to study creative nonfiction, how it took her fourteen years to write her story, how the structure changed from a book of essays, to a braided memoir, to a chronological, compressed timeline with a hook at the beginning pulled from the midpoint of the story, how there were times she wanted to give up, why she went the hybrid route vs. traditional or self-publishing, and how she met her book publisher at the San Francisco Writers Conference.

This was a first for me—not only interviewing someone on my podcast who wasn’t a friend, but also meeting an author days after I read her book. I had so many questions. How did you find your agent? And your editor? What is the San Francisco Writers Conference all about? If you were me, and it was your first time publishing a book, and you wanted to get your book into as many hands as possible, what would your next steps be??

I think I may have found a new format for the podcast. Send me your memoir recs… and send me your memoir authors!

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Until next week,

Charlie