Tayari's Blog: Joy Castro, author of THE TRUTH BOOK

TAYARI: Hi, Joy. Congratulations on THE TRUTH BOOK. It's an outstanding, terrific, knock out of a book. I used it in my reading and writing memoir class this semester. To say that my students were impressed is an understatement. Can you sort of summarize it so folks can know what the book is about? Also, how does it feel to know that people all over the country are reading this book-- and loving it?

JOY: Thank you, Tayari! I love it that you taught the book at GW, that great professors are teaching it and that book clubs are reading it. I am completely thrilled and surprised. It's an amazing, disorienting feeling, especially when the material is so personal: to realize that so many people are connecting with things I had thought irredeemably strange. The book is about what it was like for me to be adopted at birth by a family of Jehovah's Witnesses and then to run away at fourteen. It's about being the weird kid, and it deals with abuse and parental suicide. There's some harsh material: my stepfather went to prison for child molesting.

The book is also about ethnic assimilation for the sake of the American Dream--my Dad was Cuban and Spanish--and what that sacrifice can do to a family. It's about finding my birthmother in adulthood, about putting pieces together, about understanding my parents' motivations.

It's also about love, and sweet little things from childhood. I love my little brother Tony so much, and I think that helped me get through the difficult things. That, and a sense of humor. People are surprised to find out that the book has funny parts, but it does. Humor's a lifesaver. Readers have also said that the book's details of childhood--the TV shows we watched, the toys we played with--brought back that era vividly for them as well, so that's been cool. I wanted to honor the particulars, especially the particular things I loved as a kid and that brought sweetness to our lives.

TAYARI: of my favorite parts of THE TRUTH BOOK is when a outspoken classmate helps you contact your father which sets in moption your plan to escape from your abusive stepfather. You call her "the mouthy girl." I think I read somewhere that you were able to meet back up with her. What was it like to be reunited with someone who helped you in a such a big way, who probably had no idea how much she was helping you?

JOY: Yes, that has been really wild. What happened is that a journalist in Little Rock was moved by the book and wanted to do something kind, so he generously used his database research skills to put us in touch last fall.

I hadn't seen Beth since I was fourteen; we had completely lost touch with each other. She lives in Berkeley now and is a *force* in her
professional field. When I was giving readings in Seattle, she flew up and stayed in the same hotel with me. We played catch-up for days and had a ridiculous amount of fun. She is still wonderful--and still mouthy.

And you're right--she had no idea, back when we were girls together, that her words of encouragement were having such an impact. A student-journalist at Seattle Pacific University was interviewing her for the campus newspaper, and asking her if she'd realized the extent of her influence. Beth was laughing, like, "No way! Are you kidding? Nobody ever listens to me!" But I had listened, and she changed my life--and maybe saved it.

TAYARI: I meet so many people who have a story to tell. How did you come to write THE TRUTH BOOK. How long did it take? Did you have trouble silencing those voices that warn you not to put your business in the street?

JOY: Mmm, good questions. Hard ones. Well, truth be told, I did *not* want to write a memoir. I had been writing and publishing short fiction since the early 1990s, and I'd found it artistically rewarding but also cathartic--you know, I could deal with some autobiographical material, but it was cloaked more or less heavily in fiction: "Tell all the truth but tell it slant," as Dickinson put it (more or less).

A kind (and way too perceptive) editor at Scribner read a few of my
stories and asked if maybe I had a memoir I wanted to think about writing, and then a writer-friend, the novelist Michael Lowenthal,also suggested it after a particular e-mail I'd written him about reading Dostoevsky while digging a ditch. He was like, Hmm, have you ever thought about writing a memoir? And I was like, no, thank you. Too heavy. Too painful. I'll just keep writing my little fictional stories. My husband had been urging me to write a memoir for years, but I always thought, well, that's just my husband. He just thinks it's interesting because he loves me.

But the idea chewed at me, and I kept mulling it over. It scared me,
too--a lot. Those don't-put-your-business-in-the-street voices in my head were many and loud and threatening. Besides, I'd spent my whole life concealing what had happened to me and trying hard to pass for normal. Why undo that, only to make people potentially really mad? One day, full of resistance, I wrote in my journal, "For me to write a memoir, everyone I know would have to die." It seemed so clear. There was no way I could do it.

And then not long afterward, my father shot and killed himself.

Along with being devastated, I realized that maybe I didn't want to wait for everyone to die, that maybe I'd better try to figure all this mess out.

By coincidence, I had received a three-week writing residency at Norcroft that was due to start one month after my father's death. I didn't want to go, didn't want to be away from my husband and son and friends when I was feeling so wrecked. But I went, and I wrung those weeks dry. I drafted most of the manuscript--except for the last two pages, which came later--in a little studio overlooking Lake Superior. It was a crazy three weeks; I wrote three hundred pages longhand in two black notebooks. Then I came home, stuck them in a drawer, and taught full-time for the fall and spring semesters. I didn't even think about them; I couldn't bear to. When I took them out, the work had "cooled," and I could be objective with revisions. I worked on the manuscript for about four months and then sent it off.

So I had a lot of time to imagine what people's reactions might be and get used to those and deal with them in advance. And let me not omit the fact that I have a wonderful therapist! She's thanked in the book's "Gratitude" section. Her clarity and support were invaluable as I went through the whole process.

Overall, I've been very lucky. Most people in my life have been
supportive, especially my husband and brother. My colleagues and students have surprised me with their warmth and interest, and I've made friends with some wonderful writers while touring. I often receive very beautiful letters from readers, too, which is a gift I never anticipated. And readers have told me that, since reading, they've come out to their friends about their own childhood abuse, too, and that they aren't ashamed anymore. Sometimes they've been recommending my book as a way to startvtalking with friends or family about these things. That's huge.

Writing a memoir was difficult, scary, and gut-wrenching. I had
nightmares and flashbacks while writing, and I cried a lot. But it was definitely worthwhile. I don't have nightmares any more, and it's out in the world being helpful to people.

TAYARI: Finally, what's next? THE TRUTH BOOK is so beautifully written that it feels almost like music. I don't expect you to keep writing sequel after sequel to your memoir, but please assure us that there will be future works by Joy Castro in the future!

JOY: Thank you. I love it that you notice the sound of the prose; I revise by reading aloud over and over, really working and polishing each line, so it's nice when someone likes it!

I'm writing like crazy right now to finish a book of short stories; I'm trying to choose a title. And I'm starting my first novel. I'm very nervous and excited to be beginning something so big and new.

Tayari, thank you so much. You stay warm up there in Toronto, and knock that next book out. You've got a *lot* of people waiting for it.