The Promise of Anne Lamott

This past summer, I read several books by novelist and essayist Anne Lamott. Someone suggested I read Bird by Bird, which is Lamott’s book length reflection on the process of writing. Not only did I read it, I reviewed it and blogged about it.





Then I read some more Lamott and blogged some more.





Finally, in July, I began reading Crooked Little Heart with a public declaration that I would share my reactions. Reactions which might now seem long overdue!



But ripe or not, here they are.





Lamott opens Crooked Little Heart with this sentence: Rosie and her friends were blooming like spring, budding, lithe, agile as cats.




To my ear, that’s two stale similes in one very important sentence: not a good way to start.





If that were the best a writer could do for language, she would need a very, very strong story. In fact, Lamott delivers a fine, well-crafted, engaging story; good conflict, good resolution, plenty of side plot to keep the reader wanting to go forward.





But here’s a frustration. Lamott is actually very capable of outstanding language. Within pages of that disappointing opener, she refers to a man named “J. Peter Billings” as one who “parts his name on the left” –- certainly to me a bright and vivid capture. She gives us “low rolling lion-claw hills.” At one point, a teenage girl is “as broody as a gaunt young buffalo,” and another, elsewhere, “snores like an ancient pug.” And I could continue.





So why open with a bomb? That seems sloppy.





As for sloppy – Lamott continues in CLH to slip and slide around within a point of view frame. As in Rosie, she has a narrator with access to the interior lives of two characters –- but inconsistently. The reader is treated to the thoughts and feelings of the daughter sometimes and the mother at other times. When those two characters are apart, this troubles the reader little. But when the two characters come together, an odd thing happens; the narrator suddenly seem only to know what is going on with one or the other. Why is that?





The problem here may be more in the evolution of narrative technique than anywhere else. We readers have been trained in a tradition: the writer is expected to establish and then maintain a particular point of view. There are a number of options, but once set, the reader expects consistency. Any number of outstanding contemporary writers duck this expectation at random points with -- strangely enough -- no negative impact on the reader’s comfort and acceptance.





Why it works sometimes and does not work at others is beyond my capacity –- at least so far -- to parse.





But leaving aside such quibbles -- and they are definitely quibbles -- Anne Lamott writes stories and essays that are worth every minute you will spend with them.





Put her on your reading list.





Or, to put it another way:





Accessing the work of Anne Lamott


Was a task I ended liking a lot


While not quite top tier nor highly prolific


I find her delightful and pretty terrific.

Back to Bird -- Reading or Rereading

Not long ago, I was involved in a poetry event. The leader was demonstrating the way a particular poem evolved from good to better to outstanding. He finished up by quoting a writer friend of his: "It's all about the process."



A day or two later, a writer friend of my own said something about his process. When I whined -- just slightly -- that I didn't 'get' all this process talk, he asked if I'd read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.



I thought I probably had, but, not certain and not finding it in my own considerable library, I headed over to the new Half Price Books in my neighborhood and picked up a copy. Indeed, as I read or re-read, some parts of the book were completely familiar while other parts seemed altogether new. I expect certain chapters were published as excerpts in some magazine I read or passed out in a class somewhere.



On the familiar hand, Lamott's advice about "shitty first drafts" has been shared widely, was and continues to be about the most useful advice a writer can encounter. Paraphrasing in brief: write without concern about the quality; it's a draft, you don't have to share it until you are happy with the result.



But parts that were new were recognizable the way your own experience is recognizable. She talks about how writing makes your own life feel bigger, richer. I remember discovering that for myself in my early teens when a treasured friend moved away. Writing letters to her, just telling her about the ordinary things her old friends were up to, helped me see the golden glow of all those wonderful, adolescent dramas. Keeping a diary had a similar effect on my perceptions.



Much later in the book, Lamott comments that writing takes you out of yourself, which just might be the defining requirement for achieving happiness. These two ideas almost seem to contradict each other. Writing can make your own life seem bigger, more dramatic or meaningful; yet writing can get you out of yourself. It’s interesting to think about that.



Although Lamott does not make a distinction between creative and expository writing, much of what she has to say is specific to fiction or narrative. When her topic is character, setting, dialogue or plot, the subject is storytelling. But writer’s block and all manner of insecurity and doubt can assail both the novelist and the journalist. And Lamott is comedic and masterful on these writerly universals.



I don't recall getting this from Anne Lamott, but she advocates ‘tiny assignments’ and giving myself very tiny 'assignments' works for me. "Write a possible opening paragraph." "Write a few sentences about intuition.” “Work out transitions between drafted paragraphs.” I mean, I can focus down to just getting one sentence the way I want it. It won't make you a fast or prolific writer, but it can keep you writing. This, at times, is enough.



So, yes, I’ve read and reread Anne Lamott’s 15-year-old classic, Bird by Bird and gone on to recommend it far and wide: Readworthy Books, Revisiting a Classic.