The Gilmore Guide to Books

Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reviews
    • Reviews by Author
    • Reviews by Title
    • Reviews by Genre
  • Podcast
  • Policies
    • Review Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy

Slow Motion: A Memoir of a Life Rescued by Tragedy

January 14, 2015

Slow Motion by Dani Shapiro
Published by Mariner Books
Publication date: October 21st 1999
three-half-stars

slow motion

I have always believed my mother would live forever. While I have never said goodbye to my father without the thought crossing my mind that I might never see him again, my mother has seemed indestructible, fixed in my consciousness like a gnarled and stately tree that has taken root there. If she is ripped away at this moment in my life, she will take her roots with her and I will be left with less than nothing: a ragged, empty hole.

Recently I read a post over at Cynthia Robertson’s blog about memoirs that read like novels and I immediately thought of Dani Shapiro’s Slow Motion, which I finished reading this weekend. It covers her early twenties, when she dropped out of college, started an acting/modeling career and was having an affair with Lenny, a much older married man; basically, a full-on rebellion against her religious upbringing. One that was interrupted by the news that her parents had been in a horrible car accident and were not expected to live. From freewheeling hedonistic ennui Shapiro is plunged into a world of hospital rooms, medical terminology, and the pain that comes from seeing loved ones in pain.

Slow Motion navigates through Shapiro’s journey as she tries to continue with her self-destructive life while dealing with both her parents being in a hospital in critical condition. When her father dies and family dynamics implode around her, only Lenny is able to resolve the issues and to take care of her, even as his lies about his wife, family, and even other girlfriends increase. In the midst of her grief over her father and fear for her mother, Shapiro is also grappling with this conflict and its impact on her self-esteem. At twenty-three she has really never stood on her own, relying on her looks to gain entrée to a world far beyond anything she herself could achieve. When even the rug of Lenny is yanked out from under her feet, she finally begins to claim herself.

Shapiro’s story read so much like a film that I looked up certain well-known people who were key players in the tumultuous times of her early twenties and one thing led to another (as it so often does on the internet). I discovered that a portion of Shapiro’s life at this time was left out of the book even though it was the time in her life being detailed. After re-reading those segments of Slow Motion again I was left a little uncertain and…disappointed but not sure that I ought to be, if that makes sense. I thought memoir and autobiography were largely the same thing. So, I looked up the definition of memoir and it is “a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation” which sounds like an autobiography, yes? Regardless, Shapiro’s decision to omit significant personal relationships in Slow Motion caused a bit of an uproar in the reading world with some going so far as to compare the book to James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. Shapiro responded with this letter in Salon which I found to be an interesting exercise in avoidance as she does not deal with the specific questions posed about the memoir, just strongly asserts that it was not her job to write the specifics. I’ve given it a lot of thought and do feel that knowing this information might have changed my perception of her subsequent actions and yet, the book was engrossing without them. Needless to say, I’m still confused by what or how much I expect an author to reveal when writing about themselves. It may be that if a very specific time of life is covered then I expect it to be fully covered not selectively.

What do you think? Is a memoir selected parts and pieces of the author’s life as interpreted by them or should it be held to a standard of accuracy within the timeframe described?

 

three-half-stars

Related Posts

  • Related Posts
  • Same Genre
  • 3.5 Star Books
  • By Dani Shapiro
visible city
Visible City: A Novel
horses
The Year of the Horses: A Memoir
Sandrine's Case
Sandrine’s Case
garden
Quiet Summer Reading: The Garden Party
Sweet Tooth
Sweet Tooth
bourdain
Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography
maybe you
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
marilyn
Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox
time in between
The Time in Between
irby
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
thin
Thin Girls: A Novel
sacrament
The Sacrament: A Novel
dark corners
Dark Corners: A Novel
burning
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
march reading
March Reading Recap
Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life
signal
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, memoir

Comments

  1. Lindsey says

    January 14, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    Hmm…I think you ask a lot of good questions. With any autobiography or memoir, we have to engage with the work with a bit of hesitation. People always want to present themselves in the best light possible. Then of course, the editors want to make the narrative smooth and consistent, so they cut out anything that doesn’t fit with the rest of the story. Even non-fiction is a bit subjective, it seems.

    Reply
    • Catherine says

      January 15, 2015 at 9:22 pm

      It makes me wonder about all the other memoirs I’ve read!

      Reply
  2. Cynthia Robertson says

    January 15, 2015 at 9:30 am

    Thanks for the mention, Catherine.
    I read Shapiro’s letter to hr disillusioned reader, (thanks for the link, it was interesting) and I see where she is coming from. “We choose a view. We pick a story to tell. We shift through the ever-changing sands of memory, and in so doing create something hopefully beautiful, by which I mean universal. We try to tell the truth – by which I do not mean the facts.” It’s impossible to tell it all, or even tell it fairly to everyone, in the process of trying to get to the truth of the tale, and she expresses this beautifully. She’s a nice writer, to judge from her (gently annoyed) response.
    Interesting post!

    Reply
    • Catherine says

      January 15, 2015 at 10:22 am

      Yes, she is, Cynthia! I’ve met her twice at events and she is so forthcoming and genuine. I’m still conflicted probably because I’m not an author so am not sure how much importance I put on every detail being recorded.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Save time and subscribe via email

No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!

Bookshop

Currently Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
The Dutch House
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

goodreads.com

Affiliate Disclosure

I’m an affiliate for Bookshop and Amazon. If you click on a link that takes you to any of these sites and make a purchase I’ll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!

Archives

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2023

Copyright © 2023 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in