Sara Faith Alterman is the author of Let’s Never Talk About This Again: A Memoir. She’s written for TheNew York Times, McSweeney’s, and The Boston Globe, as well as the anthologies Modern Loss: Candid Conversations About Grief and Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. She also produces Mortified, the acclaimed stage show, podcast, and Netflix series that features adults reading from their cringe-worthy teenage diaries Alterman grew up in the Boston area, but now lives in San Francisco with her family. She will always be a Masshole at heart.
EB: Before we start, I feel like I should tell you that before I called you, I was on the phone with my grandmother, who was diagnosed with dementia, likely Alzheimer’s, back in December, and she didn’t recognize my voice for the first time.
SFA: I’m sorry. Do you want to reschedule?
EB: No, actually, I feel like talking to you right now will actually make me feel better. You are the person who gets it the most, I think.
SFA: Ha, well, yeah.
EB: It’s funny, but part of why I really love nonfiction is I love connecting to other people’s stories and learning about experiences that I haven’t had. But also seeing that other people have shared your own experience is so validating. And reading your book, about your dad’s decline from Alzheimer’s, and how he did all the same things my grandmother is doing now… it’s comforting, in a way. I was really sad when I finished reading it, but I also felt a lot better. So, thank you. I felt less alone.
SFA: I’m happy to hear that, because that’s what I intended with the book. In my family, we tended to avoid difficult conversations. When my dad got sick, we were all operating in a conversation vacuum as usual, not really talking about anything “real” or scary. It was brutal, but avoiding scary subjects was basically a family tradition.
Somewhere along the way I discovered that Seth Rogen and his wife Lauren Miller Rogan have a nonprofit called Hilarity for Charity which is an Alzheimer’s activism and advocacy group—they raise a ton of money for Alzheimer’s research by throwing comedy shows and giving you the tools to do your own fundraising events. I can’t remember how I discovered it, probably a random Google search. Reading through the HFC website was the first time that I felt like it was okay to feel other emotions about this disease, besides sadness. You can give yourself permission and space to laugh, too, at someone’s kooky behavior, at your own reactions, at how surreal the whole disease can feel.
EB: Yeah, I get that. Well, your book definitely gave me permission to feel all the feelings.
SFA: Thank you.
EB: So, how did you first get into writing personal nonfiction? I know that we met through Mortified—was that your way in? [EDITOR’S NOTE: Mortified is a stage show and podcast where people read their childhood and teenage diaries, journals, creative writing assignments, etc. Sara works as a producer to help performers curate what material to read, and E.B. has performed in the show in Cambridge, MA.]
SFA: Not exactly. I started in fiction and kind of evolved from there. By the time I started performing and producing for Mortified, I had published two novels. And they were… not great. I mean, I’m proud that I was able to publish at such a young age. I published my first book when I was 24.
EB: Wow.
SFA: But, and this ties into Mortified I suppose, I think about those books the same way I think about my middle or high school yearbook photos. They’re a great snapshot of who I was at the time. You know, they represent me as a young writer finding my voice, and where I was at creatively, professionally, and skill-wise at the time. I’ve grown so much since then. I mean, those books came out fifteen years ago, I hope I’ve grown.
EB: [laughter]
SFA: Anyway, by the time I got involved with Mortified, I had studied comedy writing at Second City and was writing and teaching at a comedy theater in Boston. I was also in graduate school for journalism, while freelancing for The Boston Phoenix. [EDITOR’S NOTE: RIP, The Phoenix.]
EB: You were studying journalism?
SFA: Yeah, it’s funny, I knew I wanted to have a long career as a writer, but didn’t know how to get there. The books I had written already hadn’t led to more opportunities. So, I thought, maybe I should go back to school. I looked around at what programs were accepting applications, and that’s how I ended up getting a Master’s at Emerson in print and multimedia journalism.
EB: That’s okay, one of the ways I determined what grad schools I should apply to was who didn’t require GRE scores.
SFA: That’s amazing, and a perfect approach. Those tests are bullshit. I could talk about that for hours! Anyway, as I was learning how to be a reporter, I realized that I’m much better at writing about my own experiences than I was other people’s. It might not surprise you to hear that I was not a great journalist.
After finishing the program, I got hired as a staff writer at The Phoenix, and, because they were an alt weekly, I could do some weirder, first-person writing. That part was extremely gratifying. Okay, here’s where I get back on track after this very long-winded story—it was around the time that I was at The Phoenix that I started to get involved with Mortified, working with other people to comb through their teenage diaries, to find story arcs and help them weave together funny and vulnerable stories. All of this stuff—the fiction, sketch comedy, journalism, story producing—it all kind of clicked together. I discovered that I loved telling personal, true stories, and that I had picked up the skills to do it pretty well. I began writing and publishing more essays after that. I left journalism, but stayed on with Mortified. I’ve been with the show for, I think, thirteen years now, and I continue to improve as a storyteller because of it.
EB: So when and how did Let’s Never Talk About This Again come about? Wasn’t it originally going to be a collection of essays and not a memoir about your dad dying of Alzheimer’s?
SFA: Yes, I originally pitched the book as a funny essay collection, each about some facet of dealing with Alzheimer’s. Essays feel very comfortable for me. I have never thought of myself as being very good at writing cohesive, long pieces that have multiple threads. All of my training is in short-form stuff. Comedy sketches are usually three to five minutes, most news pieces have a very specific word count. And you really had to be strict about it when I was studying journalism and working at The Phoenix. At that time, the early to mid 2000s, print was still king. Publications were trying to figure out how to make the jump to online.
But as I began writing the essays themselves, I realized that they were breezy in a way that didn’t honor my dad. Just a shallow explanation of my history and feelings. I was still in the thick of grief, and I wasn’t ready to fully confront that.
EB: Of course. Who does?
SFA: It’s certainly not the model I grew up with! I don’t know why I was even trying to write anything about my dad. Probably for therapy. To feel like I had somewhere to focus my grief.
When I talked to the editor who eventually bought the book, Suzanne O’Neill at Grand Central Publishing, she said she wasn’t interested in essays, but did love the potential the overall story had. She wanted to know if I was interested in trying long form. It was terrifying. But I needed a challenge. I needed something harder than grief. And it was. Writing this book was so hard, and an enormous source of pain. Joy, too, but a lot of pain. But with Suzanne’s guidance, it’s a much, much better book than it would have been if I had just done essays.
EB: I somehow missed the subtitle “A Memoir” on the cover, so when I opened the book I was still expecting it to be essays, and then I was sort of surprised when chapter two just kept going from chapter one, but I was also so happy to just dive into your history and your story and stay with you. I love reading essays, but I also love the experience of really being in someone’s story in a memoir. You get to sit with them.
SFA: Yes, and I am so glad Suzanne encouraged me to do that. She’s devoted her career to editing memoirs by funny women, helping them connect with their feelings in a way that you wouldn’t expect. She did Abbi Jacobson’s book I Might Regret This, Mindy Kaling’s memoirs and also my close friend Meredith Goldstein’s book. When I was trying to decide what to do, I thought, this is a person who I think can teach me a lot, and I aspire to write the kind of books that she has edited and shaped. So I ditched the essays and went for it.
EB: It is so validating when an editor tells you they think you are capable of something. When they believe you can write this book, and write it even better than you think you can. Who else do you turn to for support while writing? I know you are plugged into the Boston writer scene, even though you live in San Francisco. You’re friends with Nina MacLaughlin from working at The Phoenix, right?
SFA: Yeah, she was on staff before I got hired. When I was an intern. A shitty one.
EB: [laughing] What?
SFA: I was a twenty-six-year-old grad school idiot. I thought I was too good for anything because I’d already written those two novels. Nina was a seasoned journalist and a fantastic writer who saw through my bullshit. I reconnected with her a few years ago and ended up kind of scuffling my feet and staring at the floor while I apologized for being such an idiot child. I really admire her as a writer and as a human being. Her books are incredible. I think women writers, especially Bostonian women writers, need to look out for each other.
EB: Yes! That is my life philosophy as a writer. There is no point in being competitive as writers and artists—there is room for all of us if we make space and encourage each other and support one and other.
As a writer of nonfiction, thinking of looking out for people, how do you approach writing about people you love? I ask almost everyone I interview for this series about this. Do you ask for permission? Did you show your mom and husband and brother what you planned to write about them ahead of time?
SFA: They each had a different reaction to the news that I was going to write a book, although they were all supportive immediately. My brother said it was fine, just don’t embarrass him. He, I think, skimmed the scenes that included him and didn’t want to read any more. Mom was really touched that I wanted to write about my dad. I waited to send it to her until it was finished, but before I turned it in. She wanted to tweak a few things but otherwise was happy with it. My husband was very involved from the beginning. He’s a terrific person to bounce ideas off, plus he experienced a lot of the events of the book right alongside me. We’ve been together for thirteen years. He helped me work through and remember details about my father’s illness and death that I’d forgotten or blocked out, because they were traumatic.
EB: Another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot, maybe as I am getting to the point in my life where I am planning to have a family of my own, but how do you approach writing about your kids? Did you ask your sons for permission? Isn’t there a power dynamic with parents and kids? It feels like punching up vs. punching down in comedy… you can write about your own parents (punching up) because they had power over you, but does writing about your kids feel like punching down? What about writing about a parent who is no longer alive or is too sick to give permission or who is losing their dignity or privacy? Also, I wish men got asked this question as much as women do! Ugh!
SFA: Ha! I wish the male and female experience were more equal in general. My son was only three when I started writing the book, so I didn’t ask his permission because he wouldn’t have understood what I’m asking. I’ve talked about the book with him, though, and he’s quite excited to be mentioned in there. Without spoiling anything, I include a story that my father wrote for my son, and he loves when I read it to him. He tells everyone, “Did you know that my mama wrote a book called Let’s Never Talk About This Again? It’s about me!”
EB: [laughter] Great, even if misleading, publicity!
SFA: In general I try to maintain his privacy. I do post photos of and anecdotes about him on my private social media accounts, but I need to reevaluate that.
I think I did my best to preserve my father’s dignity. My mom thought—and hopefully still thinks—that this book was a tribute to Dad. There are a lot of details about him and about our family’s experience with his illness that I left out, because some of them were too intimate. My goal was not to write a sensational book, it was to explore a father/daughter relationship and tell a story about Alzheimer’s in a way that I hadn’t seen it done before.
EB: In general, what do you find most challenging about writing nonfiction?
SFA: Giving myself permission to be vulnerable, instead of using jokes to back off whenever I feel uncomfortable. And especially with memoir, forcing myself to believe that anyone would find my life interesting. I needed to accept that possibility in order to slog away at it on days when I felt completely defeated and overwhelmed by writing a book, and by my own grief. And after two years of researching and writing, I was so tired of thinking and writing about my own life and my own father’s death. That was probably the biggest challenge. Wanting to move on, but needing to stay present.
EB: And what do you find most rewarding?
SFA: Oh my gosh, what a question. I’ve always been drawn to true stories, I suppose that’s why I’ve been with Mortified for so long. It’s fun to see the world through someone else’s eyes, especially a teenager, when the stakes are equal for everything happening in your small world. You know; your crush, your math test, your unfair parents, your parents’ unfair divorce. I love working with people to dig through their diaries, and help them make discoveries about the adult they’ve become, based on the teenager they were. Dig into their past to understand their present.
Along those lines, I discovered a lot about myself while writing my memoir, which is of course a cliché and insufferable thing to say. Even just “my memoir,” I’m rolling my eyes at myself right now. But I did find satisfaction in pouring my heart out and seeing what it looks like, if that makes sense. My first few drafts were awful, there were too many puns and diversions from sincerity. So I suppose it wasn’t the writing itself that was rewarding, but the rewriting, because although it felt like punishment to lean into my own discomfort, it also felt like growth. God, my therapist would love that answer.
EB: Finally, what is a favorite passage of nonfiction by a fellow non-man writer?
SFA: In keeping with my love for diaries, I want to share a bit of Heidi Julavits’s The Folded Clock, a collection of her own diary entries that span a few years of her recent life. I love it, it’s so funny, but still gorgeous writing.
Today I spoke with a person about a book we’d both read. The book had been billed to him as “original,” and he was complaining about how not-original this book was. I personally thought the book was original enough; besides, what does it mean to be original anymore? Hasn’t originality obsolesced? Worrying about originality is like worrying about the best place to hang your wall phone.
This person said, of the book’s unoriginality, “I mean, we all read Walden in college.”
I did not read Walden in college. I did not read Walden ever, though I recently pretended to a Spanish translator of Walden that I had read it. I have been to Walden Pond; I’ve toured Thoreau’s cabin where he wrote Walden. As a result of that visit (and after reading a few online excerpts), I’ve felt okay occasionally describing my diary as a “contemporary take on Walden.” Like Thoreau, I am pretending that I wrote this diary over the course of a year, when in fact I wrote it over the course of two years, two months, and two days (give or take). Like Thoreau, I wanted to “live deliberately,” and was worried that if I did not I might, “when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Like Thoreau, I wanted to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
Unlike Thoreau, I have no fondness for sparse living.
As someone who often went nighttime skinny dipping in Walden Pond in my early 20s, I always felt shame about being a writer and New Englander who’s never read Walden, or even wanted to. But now I’m confident that nighttime skinny dipping in Walden Pond is, in fact, Walden-adjacent, so it counts.