Exposure

Writing memoir is not for the weak or unsure of heart.  It requires first of all a self-awareness that comes with lived experiences and secondly a willingness to be completely vulnerable, sometimes at the expense of others. Consider for a moment that individual in your life that has the answer to every question, the solution to every problem and the knowledge of the world at their fingertips. This omniscience individual can do no wrong.  Until one day the unthinkable is revealed and you discover that it’s all a lie.  In the Impostor’s Daughter- A True Memoir, this is the story that Laurie Sandell writes.

Sandell structures the book as a graphic memoir divided into two parts. Although there are fewer words on the page compared to non-graphic memoirs, no detail is left out--from the pictures on the wall and books on the shelves to Christmas trees and snow covered sidewalks. It’s all included in the frame of each scene holding the reader in place surrounded by visual clues that make efficient use of word necessary and easy to follow.   I ask myself if this is the reason I appreciate the book so much.  While the answer is yes, there is more.

Sandell is clearly a graphic artist as well a writer.  She combines the two to deliver an amazing story of love between father and daughter, betrayal and self-discovery just ahead of self-destruction.  She writes, “In truth, I had no idea who I was. This was reflected most glaringly in my relationships, where I tended to take on the identity of whomever I was with until I became enraged with that role and ran (pg 61).”  In this way, father and daughter are alike.

While Sandell shows one example after the other proving her father a fraud and the negative impact it had on her, I become more interested in how she wrote the book.  Not craft, art, structure or framing but how she overcome the pressure from her family and editor, “Are you sure you’re ready to do this? Expose your father as a fraud in front of the whole world? (pg77)” How she overcame the guilt, “For the moment I spent all my time writing at the New York Public Library. Seeing my father’s crime laid out on-screen didn’t make the act of exposing him easier; if anything I felt exposed (pg 85).”  There is some real behind the scene personal fortitude and strength pushing the book forward in addition to solid craft and art.

I found myself wanting to know more about Sandell’s strength to write past the doubt of her sisters, the anger of her father and feeling exposed.  Her strength and vulnerability is what captures me in this read.  That and Sandell’s brilliance to use art to convey a message that might have otherwise been too difficult to write.