Kelly Kathleen Ferguson
When I put on a prairie dress and climbed into my car to retrace the pioneer journey of Laura Ingalls Wilder, I had no idea what I was doing, much less how I might write about the experience. As the book developed, people wanted a description of what I was writing in three words or less. My go-to label became “humorous narrative nonfiction.” Then I read Robin Hemley’s discussion of his book Do-Over (In which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments). Hemley taught me to call my book an “immersion memoir,” which he describes as when a writer “creates a kind of framework to actively engage in experience and memory.” Oh!
Nellie Bly could be considered the first writer who made situation manipulation famous when she faked her way into Bellevue’s mental ward. George Plimpton practiced with the Detroit Lions and sparred against Sugar Ray Leonard. In 1961, John Howard Griffen traveled the South in blackface and wrote Black Like Me. More recently, A.J. Jacobs has forged an entire career with books ranging from The Year of Living Biblically to My Life as an Experiment. (I’ve noticed “the year I _____” set-up is popular.)
Enjoying a "Laura twirl."
A less flattering name for immersion memoir is “Schtick Lit,” implying that the genre relies on gimmick to generate interest. And my initial conception of the Laura trip might have tipped over into this territory. My idea was to travel Borat style, (i.e., in character) pretending to be this kooky woman who really thought she was the reincarnation of Laura. By the first gas station stop, I knew this would never work. I didn’t have enough chutzpah to keep up the act. And why should I? Borat struck me as the worst sort of gimmickry, not to mention mean. Duping people for a cheap laugh struck me as against the spirit of the Little House books I loved.
As it turned out, wearing the dress for a twelve-day road trip was hard enough. On day one, when I zipped up the back and tied my bonnet strings, I learned my first lesson about how costume would change my experience—going out in public alone in prairie garb activated intense social anxiety. Discoveries unfolded from there. I encountered Amish women in prairie dresses and felt like an imposter. I stood on a prairie and learned that bonnets function like sunglasses—and blinders. Children ran towards me. Children ran away from me. Often, people pretended to flat-out ignore me.
Doing a Laura Reading.
At times I questioned (and still do) the “gimmick” of the dress (every time I zip up for a reading). But I know my interactions with people would have been completely different if I’d worn jeans and a t-shirt (and in the same way, the dress changes what happens at my readings). Wearing the dress creates tension that pushes me towards deeper self-reflection. I also love the dress.
So, how to escape the schtick when tackling your own immersion memoir? Hemley defends immersion by explaining that all memoirs and novels have a structure. Okay. Even so, in my case, the road trip provided structure. I didn’t have to wear a prairie dress. The key to me, then, is the sincerity of intention. I (stubbornly and perhaps naively) believe the reader can smell a phony. Bly really wanted to know what was going on in Bellevue. Plimpton loved and excelled at sports. I have had a genuine and lifelong obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder.
As a creative writing instructor, I’ve had success with the immersion memoir essay as an assignment. One student actually worked (no Facebooking, no texting) all day at her menial office job and got so far ahead, she threw the workplace into chaos and was almost fired. We learned that at some jobs the best work ethic is no work ethic. Another student confronted his fear of vegetables by eating nothing but vegetables. He discovered that his veggie diet resurrected memories of his controlling mother.
If you’re interested in immersion memoir, you might assign yourself the task of writing an essay. Below are the tips I give my class. In defense of my rules, I’ll say that any teacher of undergrads understands that students need guidelines written in the style of contract law, or they will go home and stare at their roommates and write about how super-awesome they are and that it’s hard to explain why, but they are so super-awesome. You, of course, would not do this. But if you haven’t attempted immersion memoir before, these tips might make it easier to try:
(1) Be genuinely curious about your immersion and what it might yield.
(2) Don’t pre-judge what might happen and take copious notes on what …..actually does happen.
(3) Comedic potential doesn’t hurt but the piece can’t be merely slapstick.
(4) The immersion should generate some kind of conflict. (I’m not …..interacting with my co-workers the way I usually do—they will notice and …..make judgments about me. If I make myself eat this broccoli I might …..throw up. People either avoid me or accost me because I’m wearing this …..prairie dress.)
(5) The experience should have potential for a meaningful discovery. This tip …..really follows from tip 4. If you generate conflict, there will be potential …..for meaningful discovery. One hopes.
I was going to give even more “shoulds,” such as “you can’t just go and stare at a fig tree,” but then there’s always the writer who could go and stare at a fig tree and write about it in a way that would transform all fig-tree staring to come. Ah, I miss you David Foster Wallace.
Generally speaking (not counting our fig-tree-staring genius) I maintain that the less successful essays result when the student (or published author) doesn’t take enough risk. Some writers take physical risks, which is always exciting (such as Plimpton boxing or Jon Krakauer climbing Mt. Everest) but at a minimum the author has to take an emotional risk. If the author has nothing at stake, that “something else” won’t generate. As for myself, I expected that driving around the rural Midwest in a neon blue prairie dress stalking Laura Ingalls Wilder would do nothing less than transform my entire life. And then I wrote the memoir to figure out if it did.
Kelly Kathleen Ferguson’s book My Life as Laura: Or How I Searched for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Found Myself will be released by Press 53 this September. Meanwhile, she can be found at her website, writing about all things Laura and other things.