When I go to writing workshops and conferences, I cringe when I hear Average Joe/Jane and their memoir they're preparing. I don't doubt their sincerity, but I doubt two other things: the perception they have of themselves and of their lives. Last March I went to a conference lead by a few published Quebec writers (Claude Lalumière, Isabelle Laflèche, John Calabro, Catherine Mackenzie and another woman I don't remember the name). During the question period a woman in the audience said: "I self-published my memoir, every friend of mine tell me it's amazing, but why don't publishers pick it up then?" Uuuuuuugh! As a reader, if I venture into non-fiction I want to read about people I want to know better. If the highligh of your life is to have had two divorces and three kids, it's likely that I will never pick up a book about you.
Right now,the only narrative non-fiction I want to read is The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. It's the novelized life of Gary Gilmore, first man to be executed after the re-insertion of death penalty (and leave the word in style he did). Murdering people and staring down the rifles of the executioners and only having: "Lets do it" for an answer make me wonder about what kind of man Gilmore was. Being a reader, I am therefore tempted to pick up the book about it.
If I had to write non-fiction, I would write about this guy: Simo Hahya. This fun-loving Finnish citizen has been endowed with the nickname of "White Death" by the Russian army. The...FREAKIN'....RUSSIAN ARMY! THEY are supposed to be the white death. During Finland invasion, Hahya posted himsed in the forest during blistering colds and shot Russian soldiers like they were cheap game. His official kill count is of 505, but Finland government estimates it to be around 800. He killed...800 people!
Knowing the Russians like you and I do, they didn't take Hahya lightly. Not at all. After being decimated by this one man army, they found him and shot him in the face. According to the soldier that picked him up afterwards: "half of his head was missing". So, that was the end of Hayha...NOT! He took several years to recuperate from this wound and was permanently disfigured, but he went on to live a long and successful life as a dog breeder (which is..like...the manliest job there is, unless you breed Yorkshire Terriers). He died in 2002 at a whooping 96 years of age. There could be one or two things to be said about this guy that World War 2 nut-jobs and your casual readers might wanna read. I'd read it.
