Suzanne Finnamore:
photo by
Augusten Burroughs
I read and loved her book The Zygote Chronicles, but as I wrote in this post, Suzanne Finnamore really came to my attention when I found out that her divorce memoir, Split, was due out the same week as my divorce memoir, How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed. As much as I knew this was bad news for me (she already had two successful books behind her; I was a short timer coming out with my first book), my publicist tried to convince me that this was, in fact, a good thing, that reviewers would talk about us together as a trend. Okay, that happened once. (And frankly, the “trend” didn’t come til a year or so after our books were out. I’ll write more about that here soon).
But as I’ve written elsewhere, I got to know Suzanne and her work better as a result of this strange twist of timing and fate, and I love her feisty, bad ass voice. Suzanne is one of those writers who can turn anger into yummy dark humor on the page. She says the stuff that most only dare to think, and that’s just one of the reasons I’m thrilled she’s going to be one of the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat teachers.
A couple of years ago, I interviewed Suzanne for Match.com’s Happenmag about finding love online after divorce. And, in another twist in the Theo and Suzanne story, it was answering the questions for that interview that inspired Suzanne to write her upcoming memoir Add to Cart: A Memoir of Loss , Lust, & Finding My 2nd Husband Online at Fifty. Here’s a link to the sneak peak of ADD TO CART–Chapter One. It’s a bit of a tease. After you read it, you’ll want more. But maybe we can get her to read us a little more at the faculty reading at Wild Mountain. Let’s hope so.
I read Suzanne’s memoir, Split, while working on my own memoir, and thought, “Oh, shit, I can never write like that.” She’s brilliant, and I can hardly wait to hear her at the conference. Let’s just by-pass Christmas and get to march.
I’m all over the idea of by-passing Christmas.
AND totally agree that Suzanne is brilliant.
theo
This is the part of your post that makes me want to read her work “Suzanne is one of those writers who can turn anger into yummy dark humor on the page. She says the stuff that most only dare to think, and that’s just one of the reasons I’m thrilled she’s going to be one of the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat teachers.”
She does sound brilliant!
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