What is the date you began writing this memoir and the date when you completed the memoir? I began writing in 1998. The first version was almost 200,000 words. Several trusted friends and mentors read it and made suggestions.
The editor (Harriet Richards) of my first book, a collection of short stories titled Lessons from a Nude Man (Hagios Press, 2015), read The Unraveling and made suggestions.
https://www.harrietrichards.ca/
In 2016, Canada Council for the Arts awarded me a grant to do an extensive revision and I cut the manuscript to around 90,000 words.
Over the years, I sent the manuscript to many publishers and received expressions of interest, but I did not get offered a contract until 2020. It will be published on November 6, 2021, by University of Regina Press.
I’d like to thank University of Regina Press for taking on my memoir. I believe it will help and heal many people and I believe the time is right for this book. Hundreds of readers and writers have already expressed heartfelt support at the news that this story will finally be published.
https://uofrpress.ca/Books/T/The-Unravelling
Where did you do most of your writing for this memoir? And please describe in detail. I wrote in my home. After my husband’s suicide, this became a challenge. His family blamed me for his death and this made it difficult to get a job in the small community where I lived. I had worked for him in his law practice so I was unemployed, still raising our two children. However, I still owned a home so I opened a bed and breakfast in the former law office and set up a makeshift writing room in my bedroom, using the old computer and the large desk from the office. When I had paying guests, I slept on a small bed in the sunroom. When I had no guests, I used one of the comfortable beds in the B&B space.
Credit and Copyright by Donna Besel
What were your writing habits while writing this memoir- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? When both children were in school and I was not busy substitute teaching, I wrote during the day. Sometimes I wrote all night long. To deal with my emotions, I used a pen and loose-leaf pages. To write the memoir, I used the computer. At the time, I could not afford a laptop.
https://www.facebook.com/mbartscouncil/videos/563338168434248
Donna Besel at age 16. Front Jacket cover of Lessons From A Nude Man.
Out of all the specific memories you write about in this memoir, which ONE MEMORY was the most emotional for you to write about? And can you share that specific excerpt with us here. The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer, and please provide page numbers as reference. I found writing about the sexual assaults to be gut-wrenching and I still get choked up when I reread them. The entire memoir depicts only a few examples of the physical details of the assaults; it tells more about the family relationships, community reactions, and legal process. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 7, page 27 :
The bedroom was only about two and a half metres wide. I stared at the picture of “Boy Blue” on the wall, while he rubbed himself into a frenzy.
“Boy Blue” had long hair and blue tights. The background looked dark and stormy, like it was planning to rain. I could identify with this foppish shepherd. I might get wet.
I thought, “Little Boy Blue, come gather your creep. He’s under my blankets and he’s starting to leak.”
This memory reeked of wetness – first of all, the wetness of his mouth. Slobbering, nuzzling, chewing my neck, ears, and shoulders. I enjoyed the touching, hard as that was to admit. What did that make me? Complicit? Starting on my ears, he slid his tongue in-and-out, in-and-out, all the time wheezing with unusual, intense, insane breathlessness. Wetness. Hard panting. Wetness. Slurping. After a few minutes of slobber and chomp, he decided he had enough foreplay.
In the midst of this memory, I grappled with guilt. Did I want this? I needed to remember I had lost a mother. No one seemed to care what happened to us. No one supported or even touched me. After school and on weekends, I supervised the army of reluctant siblings.
“Wash. Make your bed. Pick up your clothes. Help out. If you don’t, I’ll make you.”
I needed some compassion. What did I get from this asshole? A tongue in the ear, a poke in the bum, a finger up my privates. Besides the usual teenage problems of acne, school, looks, clothes, I was forced to deal with this garbage. Why didn’t I tell? Telling at the time, in that family, seemed impossible.
Back to the scene of the slime.
“Boys will do this to you all the time. I’m teaching you what to like. This is what women like. I’m not even fucking you.”
He decided to get more physical and check out how my breasts were developing. What fatherly concern! He slid his hands around the front of my torso. I crunched up into a fetal position. He massaged my breasts. I clamped my arms to my sides, trying to stop the fondling. He pried up my arms.
Can you describe the emotional process of writing about this ONE MEMORY? Over the years, I have had lots of counselling and attended support groups, workshops, and conferences for sexual assault survivors. The above memory resulted after I returned from a session with my support group. As mentioned, it felt deeply visceral and disturbing to write. In 2016, CBC Literary Awards shortlisted the entire scene in their Creative Nonfiction Contest.
Anything you would like to add? The narrative of this memoir covers the disclosures in my family and the three and a half years after the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) charged my father with the childhood sexual assault of me and four of my sisters. At the time, I had ten siblings. The story is based on my journals and legal documents. When my father was charged, we were all adults. The legal proceedings divided my family and the small community where we grew up.
The memoir tells a personal story that is comfortable with ambiguity and ambivalence. It does not pretend to be entirely objective or depict black and white conclusions. It is a narrative that does not pretend to speak for anyone other than one’s self. It uses literary devices such as dialogue, flashbacks, images, and metaphors. Autobiography resembles journalism – less complicated and a more straight-forward listing and reportage of facts and dates. It may not even tell a story.
Donna Besel loves writing of all kinds, and does presentations for schools, libraries, universities, conferences, and retreats. Her work has gained recognition from CBC Literary Awards and won national contests. A collection of short stories, Lessons from a Nude Man, earned two nominations for Manitoba Book Awards and a spot on McNally Robinson’s annual bestseller list. Recently, Prairie Fire Magazine awarded her story, “A Bay Filly,” first place in their annual nonfiction contest. The forests of Eastern Manitoba, where she has always lived, provide endless ideas and settings for her “boreal stories.”
https://www.facebook.com/borealstories
https://www.facebook.com/donna.besel
https://uofrpress.ca/Books/T/The-Unravelling
Donna Besel in October of 2021. Copyright by Donna Besel.
Short Works
- memoir “Juniper Blaze” in The Cottager 2020 summer issue
- memoir “The Bay Filly” in Prairie Fire 2020 summer issue, placed first in Creative nonfiction contest
- short story “The Red Dragon” in online publication the quint: an interdisciplinary quarterly from the north, July 2019
- essay “The End of a Marriage” in Caitlin Press anthology Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups and Downs of Marriage, edited by Fiona Lam and Jane Silcott, 2018
- podcast on CBC Radio’s “Love Me” program, Episode 6, 2016
- short story “Lessons from a Nude Man” broadcast on University of Winnipeg Radio Station, 2015
- “Nice Women Want to Work on the Garbage Truck?” Prairie Fire 2016 spring issue
- “The English Cousin,” Prairie Fire 2013 spring issue
- “Fare Well,” This Magazine November/December issue 2012, placed first in Creative Nonfiction Contest
- “Sam, Lump and the Boathouse Reno,” Prairie Fire Boreality Issue, spring 2012
- “Lessons From a Nude Man,” Prairie Fire Home Place: Writing From Around Manitoba fall 2010 issue
- “Breaking Through,” a/crosssections: New Manitoba Writing, Manitoba Writers’ Guild 25th anniversary anthology, 2007
- memoir “Dead Skunk,” Prairie Fire 2003 summer issue
- numerous nonfiction magazine articles on building methods, cottage construction, crafts, music, outdoor recreation, eco-tourism, the arts and artists, writers, writing