How To Add Humor to a Sad Memoir

HOW TO ADD HUMOR to a sad memoir? And why? And where? These are the questions faced by every good writer whose efforts may seem easy when read, but who labored over lightening up some of life’s heavier moments — and did it just for you, the reader. It takes considerable work to know when, where and how to place moments of light amid the dark. As I considered who could best teach you this, I thought only of Lisa Romeo, whose new memoir, Starting With Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love After Loss, offers flashes of humor, love and warmth amid her sad tale. 

Building Lighter Moments into a Segmented Structure in Heavy Memoir

by Lisa Romeo

Recently, I was setting up a reading for my book, Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss, for a summer evening at a bookshop in a beachside town where vacationing families stroll, enjoying custard cones while a banjo duo plays in the gazebo.

“Keep the atmosphere in mind,” the bookstore owner advised. “You know, read something light.”

I was tempted to note, “It is a grief memoir, you know!” But I didn’t. On the one hand, I don’t want to misrepresent my book, which follows me navigating a winding grief as I try to understand my father better after he’s passed. But on the other hand, the store owner had a valid point. While many people may willingly choose to read memoirs in which sadness, trauma, illness, death, or grief play a central role, it’s human nature to also look for the light in the middle of the murky dark. Comic relief. The pause that refreshes.

When I was writing and revising, I was aware of the need to balance drama with some wit. I wanted readers to witness my dad’s natural humor; when he wasn’t being his usual serious, over-cautious, worried self, the man was a hoot. And I also wanted my readers to experience the occasional break.

So, I sprinkled in humorous asides. Like when I include the narrator describes the box containing her father’s remains: “…about the size and shape of a four-slice toaster.”  Or when my father admits he was always “A real pain in the ass.” And when I’m surprised to see my dead father smoking and remind him he quit thirteen years before: “Guess it didn’t stick,” he quips.

As the narrator in Starting with Goodbye, I’m a grieving woman in her mid-40’s who is also advocating for a special needs child, while moving through midlife, stressful sibling relationships, marriage, graduate school, and financial challenges. As she thinks about her and her father’s often-strained relationship, she contemplates her wealthy Italian-American upbringing, trying to make sense of it all.

This makes for a fair amount of heavy reflection. To help modulate the mood, I built in lighter anecdotes, flashbacks, and short dialogue exchanges, occasionally adjusting the book’s structure to lighten the heaviness. I also gave myself permission to let the narrator be, at times, flippant, mischievous, and irreverent, making for blips of darker humor.

The book moves around in time and place, even within chapters—partly to mimic the way grief occurred: unpredictable, in waves and ebbs, spurred by unbidden triggers and episodic memory flashes. That meant building a structure of many short segments, separated by white space but thematically linked. I often followed a longish and particularly poignant, reflective section with a short, lighter one, creating a kind of flash interlude.

I also decided to open with a short Prologue that includes a flashback to a darling moment when the narrator is a girl and her father is in his prime—as a way to reassure the reader that although there will be sadness ahead, take heart: there’s lighthearted delight too.

Thus, the undulating umbrella of grief is dependably, briefly punctuated with lightness. This gives the reader time to pause, to shake off sadness. Without those pauses, I’d have been asking readers to wade through too much unbroken grief without a break. This way, the book resembles life: how, even in the midst of tragedy, there is cause to smile. Someone will say or do something a little off—perhaps even wildly inappropriate—and we bust out laughing, grateful for the momentary distraction. (For those old enough to remember, think of the Chuckles the Clown funeral episode of the Mary Tyler Mooreshow. For the younger set: there’s always Youtube.)

The first of the following short excerpts of lighter moments, comes from the Prologue. The second occurs at the end of a scene when far-flung relatives and friends are gathered for dinner between the afternoon and evening visiting times at the funeral home.

The third is part of a short segment that pokes fun at Dad’s stodgy ways.

The next two are stand-alone segments that each follow a scene or reflective passage that’s particularly emotional—sad, wistful, filled with yearning. They provide just enough of a beat so a reader can surface and take in some fresh air before plunging back in.

~~

Customs inspection, JFK Airport.  August 30.

“How long have you been away?” the man in a uniform asks.

My father says, “About three weeks.” His friend Sam nods in agreement.

Simultaneously, I smile, point to my mother and Sam’s wife, Suzie, and blurt, “Well, but we’ve been gone for almost two months.”

Dad groans. The inspector begins opening all thirteen suitcases, running his hands around the edges, riffling clothing, shaking out shoes. He asks for the women’s purses, and for mine too. I slide my little girl purse, the white one shaped like a lunchbox and decorated with passport stamps, onto the counter, and smile nicely at the man.

Inside my little girl purse are twelve gold Swiss watches.

I don’t know what I’ve done, only that Dad groans again, and must now go over to a desk, fill out forms, and pull out his bulging money clip. When he’s done, he smiles at me, but kind of funny.

~~

We reminisce about a vacation to Mexico City with (my childhood friend) Laurie and her family. Dad emerged one afternoon from the hotel suite bathroom to announce, “The toilet bowl was shaking.” Dino (Laurie’s father) teased, “Whatever you’re drinking, Tony, I’ll have a double!” Dad smiled and shook his head. “No really, it wasshaking.” Two days later, back in New Jersey, the radio news announced that Mexico has had one of its worst earthquakes.

~~

When my father didn’t know an answer, he made it up, and despite his winks, sometimes it wasn’t so funny. (Although later, when my sons learn this trick, we all declare, “You pulled a PopPop!” and it is funny.) It took months, sometimes years, to convince him of the merits of something he naturally was suspicious of adopting. Only after three years, and only because I stopped trying and Frank finally had a stab at it, did Dad admit that it was a good idea to switch his Visa card to one that awarded miles for the airline they always flew to New Jersey.

Once, years ago, when Dad called me to be sure Frank would be picking him and my mother up at the airport when their red-eye landed, I said I would be there instead. My father rattled off alternatives—a car service, taxi, Uncle Silvio. Finally, I yelled into the phone, ‟Dad, believe it or not, I can pick you up at the airport even though I don’t have a penis!”

~~

Once, I dream that my father has died, and in my dream, I go to the local funeral home to make arrangements.

The funeral director seems confused. “I’m sorry, Lisa, but didn’t we have your father’s services here already?” Bill asks. He speaks slowly and with kindness.

“Yes, of course,” I answer, slightly amazed someone in his line of work could be so obtuse. “But it’s happened again.”

“Oh, I see,” Bill says, nods, and opens a file. “Well, then.”

~~

Before he capitulated to all of our entreaties and got fitted for hearing aids, Dad misinterpreted much of what was said to him. “What would you like to drink?” I would ask him at dinner. And he would answer, “What? What do I think?”

His hearing aid was either always malfunctioning, or forgotten (often on purpose) on his dresser, left behind in part because he could never get the hang of adjusting the volume. Once, on the phone with my husband, he kept asking Frank to repeat himself, which my patient husband did.

Finally, Frank said, “Maybe you need to adjust your hearing aid?”

Dad said, “Good idea. Hang on.” When he returned to the phone, my father asked Frank, whose hearing is just fine, “There, is that better?”

END

Writer bio:

Lisa Romeo is the author of Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss,(University of Nevada Press). Her nonfiction is listed in Best American Essays 2016,and has appeared in dozens of popular and literary venues including the New York Times, O The Oprah Magazine, Longreads, Brain Child, Inside Jersey, Brevity, Motherwell,Hippocampus, Sweet, Barnstorm, Front Porch, Full Grown People, and many others, and in several anthologies. Lisa teaches with Bay Path University’s MFA program, at Montclair State University, and The Writers Circle. She also works as a freelance editor and writing coach, is the creative nonfiction editor at Compose Journal, and a crafts essay editor for Cleaver Magazine.Lisa also leads workshops and presents at conferences and has received grants and scholarships from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Vermont Studio Center. A former equestrian journalist and public relations specialist, Lisa completed an MFA at Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine. She lives in northern New Jersey with her husband and sons. Visit her websiteor blog, and connect with Lisa on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.