Write into the Marrow
I want you to know: if you want to write your memoir, you can do it. Write it anyway you want. Tell the parts of your story that you can’t let go of and leave the rest out. Do it your way, the way that satisfies your soul. Please don’t worry about “memoir-writing” advice. Except this: write into the bone then crack through that and write into the marrow. Do that, and your reader will follow you anywhere.
I don’t know if someone told Regan Burke to write into the marrow, but in “In that Number,” she achieves the results.
The memoir is described as a “hybrid memoir.” I believe that’s because it covers both Burke’s amazing personal story and her riveting walk through the halls of power. To me, it’s all one piece, flowing together into an extraordinary life. There is nothing shallow about the sharing of that life, no surface treatment of its dangerous depths. But the woman who lived those difficulties–eye-poppingly selfish parents, harsh siblings, addiction, and repeated bad decisions–manages in her telling to be both hard-gazed honest and compassionate.
Oh, and there is her voice. The story is told in a way that takes us into the moments, both with full-on sensory details and unforced humor. The story is not simple, but it reads easily, quickly. And, for all its drama, when I close my eyes, the parts that return to me are the quiet moments. By the Atlantic Ocean. By the Caribbean. The times that foretell the peace Burke arrives at as the story closes.
