Dumb Little Lives

some thoughts on what's real

Friends,

When I teach the personal essay, I ask my students about the fears that crop up when they sit down to write. Inevitably, several answer, Who would care about my dumb little life?

Hearing them wonder puts an ache in my heart. I don’t know how to describe the extent to which I care. I care about dumb little lives more than anything. Dumb little lives are the best. I sit out the big, splashy memoirs. I’m not interested in the pulled-myself-up-by-the-bootstraps genre. By the all’s-well-that-ends-well genre. By the moral-of-the-story-is-think-positive genre. By the here’s-how-I-became-famous genre. Why would I give a fuck what a celebrity has to say, sieved as it is through publicists and ghost writers? Give me a strong voice, an interesting worldview, surprising depth, a way of thinking that makes me think.