“Single at 32, married at 33, and widowed at 34 . . .”
The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement is Virginia Lloyd’s haunting account of her short time with her beloved husband before his tragic death, followed by her efforts to reconstruct a self “from the wreckage of a life that was no longer possible,” while at the same time overseeing extensive renovations to her home.
Before I even finished the memoir, “a true story of love and renovation,” I knew I wanted to talk with Virginia about what it took to write about her devastating loss while she was so young and newly grieving—and how she discovered the relationship between her efforts to rebuild her life, on the one hand, and her home renovations, on the other.
Virginia’s response follows.
- Lynette
Author, Virginia Lloyd
The home my husband John and I had shared in Australia was waterlogged from the porous sandstone foundations soaking up excess rainwater. This led to “rising damp,” whereby the excess water defies gravity, travels up the walls, splitting paint and creating cracked window and plaster dust (“like those delicate mounds of sifted flour in the mixing bowl before you add the eggs”), as well as patches of mold across the ceiling. I got hundreds of bricks drilled so that fresh air could reach inside and slowly dry it out, and watched the drilling of the bricks, the mess it created, and the process of the bricks drying.
One day I saw the link between rebuilding, grieving from the deepest part of me, and what the world saw on my surface, and the renovation of the house that went from its foundations to its repainted interior and exterior. It was a simple but powerful connection that gave me a metaphor and a structure to work with. I could not have written this book without it.
Writing the book was certainly part of my grieving. I’m not sure that it helped me heal more quickly, or even more slowly, than I would have if I had not written it. To write it meant to relive the joys of my relationship with my husband as well as the harrowing depths of our challenges, John’s physical pain, and the worst of my grief. I had to bring those things to life for the reader, which meant dwelling in the lows as well as the highs of all that had gone before it. I sometimes look at the book and wonder how I did it. I’m very proud that I wrote it and that it was published.
Memoir-Writing Advice
It’s important not to confuse the raw details of memory, those myriad scraps you might jot down on a shopping receipt or in your journal, with the hard-nosed selection of relevant material for a book-length memoir. In early drafts, you do need to capture the visceral details of place, character, sounds, sights, and even smells. We bring all our senses to reading, so our writing must do that, too. As you revise, you begin to feel that some of the stories or other elements you believed essential to the work suddenly have no business being there. This is a sign that you are paring back unnecessary and irrelevant material, and letting the story tell itself through careful selection.
Work in Progress
I am wrestling with another work of nonfiction now. This manuscript, almost a complete draft, has been very difficult. I’m trying to write about the relationship between words and music, weaving through it stories from my musical childhood and that of my grandmother whose musical career ended prematurely due to changes beyond her control. There are so many musical young women who become writers—Jane Austen’s heroines are the first pianists in fiction, for example, and are based on her own musical training—that I’m curious as to where all that musicality goes.
Virginia Lloyd is an author, literary agent, editor, and manuscript consultant. The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement is available at Amazon.com and eBooks.com.
Trying to decide if your manuscript is a memoir or a family history? Read Virginia’s take on the topic.
Hope this is the right comment section, as I would love to win a copy of The Young Widow’s…” I am writing to thank Virginia Lloyd for sharing her insights. I also write memoir, which I call “creative non-fiction”. I am currently focused on my father since he died recently. In one of my observations, I write of my joy, despite his death, in finding that when my father hears beautiful music, he thinks of me. I am interested in the author’s work in progress; I am a musician (trained vocalist) turned writer. I teach first-year college writing with a music theme. P.S. Does the author live in Australia? My husband is from Sydney.
Thank you!
Belinda
Thanks for these excellent words on memoir, Virginia. When I was writing my book Positive (which you might call a collective memoir about cancer), people would ask me whether writing it was therapeutic, having recently lost my mother to cancer. It didn’t feel like therapy at the time, that’s for sure! But it did feel like an itch I had to scratch. By the time I had written the book and come out the other side, my view of cancer and loss and what they meant to me had changed quite profoundly; I’d found a new way of seeing it all. That’s something I didn’t expect when I entered the writing process.
Thanks for your comment, Belinda. I’m so glad there were points of resonance for you in Virginia’s post. And yes, she’s from Australia, and I know she spends a good deal of time in New York.
I’ll be selecting the winner of her book in a day or so, so stay tuned.
Sally, I’m so glad to hear of your experience, since writing my memoir hasn’t gotten me to what I might call “the other side” of anger and grief. But I your comment gives me hope.
Thanks so much for your comment. Keep an eye out. You might be the winner of the free, signed copy of Virginia’s book.
Lynnette, thanks for an enlightening and interest post by Virginia Lloyd.
Virginia, I appreciate your sharing on the point of writing memoir and what not to include. I’m currently in process writing a memoir based on something many have experienced, a difficult mother-daughter situation. Mine, however, included extreme verbal and emotional abuse I could never understand. It left me with many internal scars and character deficits including low self-image, a questioning doubt about myself as a daughter, and more. Currently, I’m writing a blog called Letters to Mama (brand new at http://www.sherreyameyer.blogspot.com) in which I’m writing out, if you will, those harsh memories that left me feeling less than worthy. Much later, near the end of my mother’s life, an amazing act of grace brought us to a silent period of forgiveness relative to many things including the understanding of why my mother parented as she did. Sorry to go on so long, but for now I feel I must write somewhere the raw emotion and hurt that still resides in me.
I can completely understand how writing your book would be therapeutic Virginia. I lost my husband to cancer almost five years ago (we were both 34 & I had a 2 1/2 yr old & 10 month old) and was also compelled to write some of the story. Any time I have told a piece of my life’s story, people have been awed, inspired and amazed by my journey. That alone had led me to believe that the telling of it in a memoir might just help another that has gone through a similar circumstance. Your insight that in the editing of initial drafts, the real story comes forth is an important one that struck me too. I have struggled to get the words on the page, but perhaps I can let go of some of that angst, knowing that the story will change along the way.
Thank you for sharing this interview Lynette & thank you for sharing your story Virginia.
Love the title of your book. I too have and am writing about loss and the need for honest grieving. Less putting on that strong front that often causes us to internalize what we are dealing with. My first memoir, Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, tells the story of my husband James’ short life and death. My work in progress is Smiling Is Not Resilience. Thanks for your words here.
I lost my husband of seven months on 11/11/11. I am 32 years old and to know that there is someone who is brave enough to share their experience to the world, well lets just say you are a hero to me. I came across this page by accident but I couldn’t leave it without sharing my feelings. I will look for your book and know that there are others like you out here in the world. I think we are the most amazing women those who can move mountains in the face of pure tradegy.
Dear Virginia, My husband was killed in the Vietnam war. I was 23 when he died and we had been married for three years. My memoir about my experience is in the revision stages now, and what I deeply appreciated about your advice for memoirists is the importance of using the senses to bring the reader into the experience. Regardless of how important the event was (and is) in the writer’s life, the reader cannot participate without the tools that make it a sensual and visceral. Thanks again for your very useful words.