The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #18: Suzanne Scanlon
"I’m always surprised when I’ve managed to communicate something of my experience because for so long, I felt it was impossible to communicate."
Since 2010, in various publications, I’ve interviewed authors—mostly memoirists—about aspects of writing and publishing. Initially I did this for my own edification, as someone who was struggling to find the courage and support to write and publish my memoir. I’m still curious about other authors’ experiences, and I know many of you are, too. So, inspired by the popularity of The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, I’ve launched The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire.
Here’s the eighteenth installment, featuring Suzanne Scanlon, author most recently of Committed: On Meaning and Mad Women. -Sari Botton
Suzanne Scanlon is the author of the memoir Committed (Vintage) and two works of fiction, Promising Young Women (Dorothy, 2012) and Her 37th Year, An Index (Noemi, 2015).
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
Yesterday I turned 53. I’ve been writing since I was 18.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
Committed, On Meaning and Madwomen, April 2024
What number book is this for you?
Third
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
A memoir, though it’s more than that. It’s the story of a specific time and place, a four year period in my life, and incorporates literary criticism and cultural criticism. Structurally, it’s closer to the tradition of the essay form, in that I’m thinking on the page, working through a problem.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
Broadly speaking this book is about grief, mental illness, and reading. And the intersection of those subjects. Committed tells the story of the years I spent hospitalized as a young woman. It is my interrogation of that time, an attempt to understand how it shaped my life, made me who I am, and what I’ve learned through reading the literature of madness and mental illness.
Committed tells the story of the years I spent hospitalized as a young woman. It is my interrogation of that time, an attempt to understand how it shaped my life, made me who I am, and what I’ve learned through reading the literature of madness and mental illness.
What’s the back story of this book including your origin story as a writer? How did you become a writer, and how did this book come to be?
Like all writers, I’m a reader first. Over the years, I’ve returned to many books about mental illness, and each of these has informed my understanding of my own experience, which has changed over the years. To tell this story, I returned to these writers and other texts, including the work of sociologist Erving Goffman, whose landmark book Asylums was quite helpful in understanding the dynamic of a mental hospital — as well as the medical records I could obtain; journals/notebooks; and other research I did on the history of the hospital.
I became a writer most intensely and devotedly in those years I spent in the hospital. It was there I devoted myself most fully to a daily practice — though I would not have called it that at the time. I was reading and writing in a way that would set the tone for the rest of my life.
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
I think it was hard to get published because many people feel they’ve read this story, but the truth is my book is about much more — there is another book hidden within the genre of the mental illness memoir. I subverted or interrupted or resisted that frame, that familiar madwoman story, even as I wrote it. I am not an academic but I attempted to perform a sort of intervention here.
In terms of writing, once I had the deadline it wasn’t always hard. It was often a delight. It was a process of discovery. I thought certain parts of it would be a chore but once I began, I realized that I could go to places I wouldn’t have dreamed. I had no idea I thought these things — i.e. that Gilman (and many of us) seek out a diagnosis — or that we need to jump through too many hoops to get care — or that my problem was that the doctors and hospital had this readymade template in which to fit me — when the real help should have acknowledged my singularity — and that this was the real danger of the long term hospital, that I learned to see myself as sick. Rather than human and suffering but not irrevocably so.
How did you handle writing about real people in your life? Did you use real or changed names and identifying details? Did you run passages or the whole book by people who appear in the narrative? Did you make changes they requested?
I changed names and identifying details. I told maybe one person that I was writing about him. He is a writer and he understood, that really it was a story I had to tell with characters in order to get to the real story of the book. I can’t say he liked it but he understands it. I told my family about it but only after the fact, and I can’t say that they liked it. I did not run the book by people. I did go through it with my editor, looking closely at places where I wrote about people in my family and making sure there was nothing gratuitous or mean. I included scenes that were necessary to bring my story alive. I did not include other people in order to get revenge or reveal their private lives. I only included people to the extent that it influenced and played a role in who I am today, who I became.
I see it as a spiritual process; it’s between me and the book. As Annie Ernaux has said, I had to write without thinking of the consequences. That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences, but I believe in the writing above all. I believe in trying to get to the truth of the thing, no matter what.
Nowhere do I make someone else look worse than I myself look. That is, as Orwell said, I am to be trusted as narrator because I am constantly revealing shameful things about myself. If I hadn’t done that, then it would seem odd to be writing about other people. But I’ve got serious skin in this game.
To tell this story, I returned to these writers and other texts, including the work of sociologist Erving Goffman, whose landmark book Asylums was quite helpful in understanding the dynamic of a mental hospital — as well as the medical records I could obtain; journals/notebooks; and other research I did on the history of the hospital. I became a writer most intensely and devotedly in those years I spent in the hospital. It was there I devoted myself most fully to a daily practice — though I would not have called it that at the time.
Who is another writer you took inspiration from in producing this book? Was it a specific book, or their whole body of work? (Can be more than one writer or book.)
I read widely and it’s hard to know all of what is entering my mind as I write. Lately Sigrid Nunez, Claudia Rankine, Vivian Gornick, Jamaica Kincaid. Marguerite Duras and Virginia Woolf Annie Ernaux. As much fiction and poetry as memoir. Elif Batuman’s Either/Or was (perhaps unexpectedly) inspiring, especially in the third section of the book.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
You can’t be afraid. Honestly, I don’t know why people insist on calling me brave. You do it or you don’t. And it won’t work if you are trying to make yourself look good, or holding back from getting at the truth of the story, the shameful bits.
What do you love about writing?
When it’s working, I feel transported, something in my body shifts, comes alive, and really it is in the writing, the moments of discovery that I become someone else, I’m overwhelmed at times that I have arrived somewhere I’d never expected to go. There is nothing better. It’s the best feeling in the world.
What frustrates you about writing?
I suppose the same thing, that I have to figure it out as I go. There are no guarantees. And it’s not straightforward.
What about writing surprises you?
I’m surprised that people connect to my writing. I’m always surprised when I’ve managed to communicate something of my experience because for so long, I felt it was impossible to communicate.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
First thing or close to first thing in the morning, when possible. I set timers when I’m stuck or avoiding something.
When it’s working, I feel transported, something in my body shifts, comes alive, and really it is in the writing, the moments of discovery that I become someone else, I’m overwhelmed at times that I have arrived somewhere I’d never expected to go. There is nothing better. It’s the best feeling in the world.
Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?
Conversations with friends, especially about books and writers and writing. Or about art — plays, theater, movies. Long walks. Certain podcasts and interviews. Teaching is supportive, too, in that I spend a lot of time looking very closely at a text, how it works, writerly moves and choices.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
I’m writing a book about Mary Todd Lincoln which is also a book about being a mother to a son.
Fascinating interview. I'm intrigued about her book!
So happy to see this here as I am immersed in COMMITTED and appreciate it so very much. ❤️