I recently read and wrote about Michelle Tea’s fine new collection of essays, Against Memoir, for the literary website The Millions. As I wrote in my review, I am a longtime fan (it might be more accurate, even, to say devotee) of Tea’s work, and she once gave me a professional boost by inviting me to read from my book White Elephants at her wonderful RADAR reading series in San Francisco, an experience I count as a highlight of my writing life. Still, I look at all the books I review thoroughly and write about them truthfully, and I can honestly say this is a collection that is worth your time. Read more of my thoughts about the book here, if you like:
Though she has published about as many books of fiction as she has memoir, Michelle Tea is probably best known for writing about her own life. This is due in part to the fact that even some of her fictional characters—in particular, the writer character named Michelle who starred in 2016’s astonishing dystopian novel-memoir hybrid, Black Wave—can be understood as stand-ins for herself. But it’s also certainly the case that the rollicking, hilarious cult of personality that is, in some ways, the engine of Tea’s books has become inseparable from the real person. If an artist is someone who creates their own life, then Tea has done this, then made that life into a further creation by chronicling every aspect of it and casting herself, her friends, and her lovers as larger-than-life, practically heroic figures.
There is something uniquely fascinating about the results of this. Reading Tea’s work, you get the sense that she is painting a large and beautiful but terrifying mural on the wall—all pinks and purples, fairytale turrets and monsters—and when the thing inevitably becomes enchanted, she will walk into it and decide to live there instead. As she writes in this new collection of essays, though, that might not be the healthiest impulse.
Continued at The Millions
Indicative Mood 