"On Becoming an American Writer"

1 July 2020: "Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest or louder or more loving, whatever it is, but ask them in, listen, and then write." --Alexander Chee, "On Becoming an American Writer"

I sure took my time (over 5 months!) getting through Alexander Chee's excellent collection of essays, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A wild semester got in the way a bit, as did reading up to three other books at the same time, but I also enjoyed pacing it out. It's almost like I read it in thirds, each separated by a month or so. Each essay was worth savoring. For instance, in late May, on my walk the morning after I read one about Chee growing roses outside one of his apartments, I noticed every rose bush in my neighborhood in a new way.

The excerpt above, from the book's remarkable final essay, strikes me (much like the Thomas essay I wrote about on Monday) as incredibly useful and even prescient in times such as these. Again, like Thomas, Chee wrote his book in part in response to the anxiety/despair in the face of Trumpism and the hope/resistance/drive to go on pre-pandemic. Take everything they (and you) said and felt back then and add some exponents. And yet, still these essays speak to me, tell me to keep going, tell me to hold on and fight.