The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #48: Gila Pfeffer
"An additional and equally important benefit of telling my story was that I knew it would serve as a cautionary tale to readers and maybe even save some lives."
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 48th installment, featuring Gila Pfeffer, author of Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences. -Sari Botton
Gila Pfeffer is an essayist and humorist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Today.com, and Oprah Daily. Gila’s monthly “Feel It on the First” campaign uses humor to remind women to prioritize their breast health. She splits her time between New York City, London and Instagram (@gilapfeffer)
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
I’m 50 years old and while I’ve been a writer at heart since I was a little kid (if only I’d saved the epic notes I used to pass my friends in school!) I’d say I joined the professional writing community about six years ago.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
NEARLY DEPARTED: Adventures in Loss, Cancer and Other Inconveniences was published on July 9, 2024.
What number book is this for you?
It’s my debut! At 50! And I’m clearly still not over it!
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
NEARLY DEPARTED is a memoir. It’s the story of how I outsmarted my genetic destiny with chutzpah and humor, but it spans 30-plus years, and I was always super bad at keeping journals, so it’s based entirely on my memory and the memories of those who witnessed the events I write about. I tried to combine my version of what happened with the POVs of friends and family, but ultimately I tell them it’s a ME-moir, not a YOU-moir.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
“A heartbreakingly hilarious memoir of losing both parents to cancer and making daring choices to avoid the same early demise. By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost both parents to cancer. A blood test confirmed she carried the BRCA1 gene—which put her at high risk of developing breast cancer herself. Determined to break the cycle of early death in her family, Gila decides to undergo an elective double mastectomy at a time when it was a little known procedure. This memoir follows her path as she becomes a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, finds love, and becomes a mother, before her life is derailed yet again. Her preventative mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast.
After enduring eight rounds of chemo and an oophorectomy, she takes her last-ever dip in the mikvah waters as a bald, menopausal, thirty-five-year-old mother of four. With chutzpah honed over years of repeatedly surviving the worst, she saves her own life.”
I put my career on hold to become a stay at home mom and it was during those years that I lost my dad to cancer, and got even more preventative about my own breast health. I had an elective double mastectomy at 34 which saved my life because it was that surgery which revealed the cancer I’d been trying to avoid had already taken up residence in one of my breasts. I underwent the same chemotherapy regimen my mom had 17 years earlier and was floored by the absurdity of it all. The only way I could think of to reclaim my power and agency over cancer was to write about it.
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?
My favorite class in elementary school was creative writing and, unlike most of my classmates, I lived for book reports. Early on, I gravitated toward satire and humor— The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Mad Magazine spoke directly to me and gave me a glimpse into a world I’d have otherwise not been able to access as a young girl from Staten Island. I didn’t know any other girls at the time who shared my literary tastes, only my friends’ older brothers but I was too intimidated by them to forge a connection (plus they wouldn’t really talk to me anyway). I was around 12 when I was finally old enough to watch SNL and felt like I had found my people. More than the physical comedy, I was drawn to what the actors were saying and wondered who was behind their brilliant, skewering words. I was interested in TV commercials more than the sitcoms they interrupted for the same reason: for me, it was all about the copy.
I graduated college with a B.A. in English Literature, but was already working a job in the fashion industry while I was a student because I had to pay my own bills (including my tuition). My mom died of breast cancer at 42 when I’d just finished my junior year and as much as the dream of writing for SNL or even blockbuster satirical novels of my own appealed to me, they seemed like just that: dreams. In a pre-internet world I saw no clear (or foggy) path to a writer life, much less one that paid, so I stuck to fashion and then e-commerce marketing, where I put my writing skills to use in less exciting ways.
Eventually I put my career on hold to become a stay at home mom and it was during those years that I lost my dad to cancer, and got even more preventative about my own breast health. I had an elective double mastectomy at 34 which saved my life because it was that surgery which revealed the cancer I’d been trying to avoid had already taken up residence in one of my breasts. I underwent the same chemotherapy regimen my mom had 17 years earlier and was floored by the absurdity of it all. The only way I could think of to reclaim my power and agency over cancer was to write about it. An additional and equally important benefit of telling my story was that I knew it would serve as a cautionary tale to readers and maybe even save some lives.
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
I spent ten years saying “I’m going to write a book about this!” without having the faintest idea of how to write, much less publish a book. Taking the advice of a new friend in the publishing industry, I spent five years growing an audience on Instagram and learning how to pitch and land personal essays and satire. I took online classes with seasoned writers and worked hard to build a network of writer friends whose input has been and continues to be vital to my work.
I was told it would be challenging to get a book deal for a memoir when I wasn’t famous and that memoir—particularly breast cancer memoir—was a saturated market, but I went for it anyway. Another difficult aspect was having to write about myself in a less than flattering light. The book opens when I’m 18 and the reader immediately understands that I’ve got a shaky relationship with my mom. I had to write myself as the less than ideal daughter and sister that I was and hope that the reader would see that I did my best given the hand I’d been dealt. It’s not nice to examine your shortcomings and then share them with the world but it sure does make for more compelling and relatable reading!
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?
My parents and grandparents are long gone which certainly made writing about them easier (but also harder—how to be honest while not disrespecting them?) and I sent my manuscript to my husband, siblings and a few old friends for approval. They did request minor changes (some of which I was not happy to make) but I made them because I love and respect them and would hope they’d extend the same courtesy to me if the tables were turned. I changed some names of people I no longer interact with and didn’t care to reconnect with but they were not pivotal characters to the story—sort of Non-Player Characters (NPCs), so to speak. My editor also advised me to change my doctors’ names for privacy (mine). In some cases I created an amalgam of my parents’ friends and assigned a single name to that combination character.
I spent ten years saying “I’m going to write a book about this!” without having the faintest idea of how to write, much less publish a book. Taking the advice of a new friend in the publishing industry, I spent five years growing an audience on Instagram and learning how to pitch and land personal essays and satire. I took online classes with seasoned writers and worked hard to build a network of writer friends whose input has been and continues to be vital to my work.
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.)
This could be a looooong list because I read a lot of memoir and humor. but I tried to maintain my own voicy voice and blend of gut wrenching/funny with inspiration from Dani Shapiro’s memoir INHERITANCE, Michelle Zauner’s CRYING IN H MART, David Sedaris’s ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY and also CALYPSO, Gilda Radner’s IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING, Jessi Klein’s YOU’LL GROW OUT OF IT, Georgia Pritchett’s spare and honest and very hilarious MY MESS IS A BIT OF LIFE, and Nora McInerny’s IT’S OK TO LAUGH. (But that is such a partial list—I can feel the rest of the memoirs on my shelf staring at me in silent judgement.)
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
Find your people. Build a network of writers who will give you honest feedback because “You’re an awesome writer, sweetie,” from your mom or best friend won’t get you where you want to go. There’s more than one path to publication so figure out what your specific goals are and stay true to them. Also, think about what’s at stake if you DON’T write your book. For me, that was the burning urge and crushing disappointment I’d feel for the rest of my days if I didn’t at least try to publish my story. Who would lose out if I didn’t put my book in the world? I kept a note with that reminder taped to the wall next to my desk and looked at it A LOT during my late, frustrating nights of edits.
What do you love about writing?
I like the “ideas” stage because ideas don’t require work. They just flow. I like playing with words and syllables and trying to understand why some words and arrangements are funny and some are not. The part I really, really love is when a piece is done and published. The stepping back to see what I’ve created, even if it’s not perfect (it’s never perfect, is it?). Also, none of my four grown kids is especially fond of reading, but they’ve all read my book and seem to have genuinely enjoyed it. Sometimes they work book references into our conversations, picking up a sentence or a joke that resonated and it makes me feel seen. And loved.
What frustrates you about writing?
Building on my previous answer: I find the physical and mental strains of writing to be a huge burden. When I’m working on a project—big or small—it takes over my thoughts and leaves me without boundaries between my work and home life. I sometimes drop the ball (family wise) when this happens, and after being a pretty organized stay-at-home mom for more than a decade, that’s not a good feeling.
Physically, I can never find a comfortable position to write in (yes I have an ergonomic chair and a yoga ball and an adjustable height desk and a foot rest). The week I handed in my final edits I found out that the searing nerve pain running down my right leg and lower back was a massive slipped disc. Thanks, memoir!
What about writing surprises you?
When I read back a sentence I wrote and have read a million times before and it still makes me laugh. Also the impact it can have on readers—whenever I receive an email or DM from someone who took the time to find me after reading my work I am overwhelmed with appreciation.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine or writing at specific times?
My friend and teacher Caitlin Kunkel taught me (in her excellent class Write Like an Athlete) the importance of having rituals to switch my brain into writing mode so any time I sat down to work on NEARLY DEPARTED I first played a hype song (specifically Hey Ya by Outkast) and also lit a scented candle, always the same scent. I will never again smell Cotton Poplin by BYREDO without having my back seize up. (Kidding, it reminds me of my intense focus and the clackety clack of my keyboard.) Other than that I have zero discipline or schedule, and am motivated solely by looming deadlines set by anyone other than myself.
A difficult aspect was having to write about myself in a less than flattering light. The book opens when I’m 18 and the reader immediately understands that I’ve got a shaky relationship with my mom. I had to write myself as the less than ideal daughter and sister that I was and hope that the reader would see that I did my best given the hand I’d been dealt. It’s not nice to examine your shortcomings and then share them with the world but it sure does make for more compelling and relatable reading!
Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities do you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?
My family is spread across three countries so I travel a fair amount and that pairs well with my favorite activity, which is reading (paper only, no Kindle or audiobooks for me). I’ve recently taken up yoga and Pilates in the hopes that my slipped disc corrects itself so I can get back to tennis which I’m not very good at, but I’m proud of myself for learning how to play in my 40s. I’m pretty handy with a hot glue gun and duct tape, too. If you’ve got a problem that duct tape can’t fix, you’ve got a real problem.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
As my agent likes to say, I definitely have more books in me and I’m letting some ideas mill around in my head, but for now I’ve got so much more work to do getting NEARLY DEPARTED in front of ideal readers, I think I’ll be focused on that for a while. I’m still in awe of the fact that I achieved what I set out to do, so I’m going to savor that feeling for as long as I can.
I’ve neglected my Substack (Feelin' It) since I published my book and I’d like to motivate myself to get back to posting there. I’ve got plenty to say. 😀
What an awesome surprise in my in-box! I love Gila and her memoir is a must-read.
Wow. Just wow