It’s a family affair
Sathnam Sanghera on the power of conversation in families
THE ONE QUESTION YOU FACE MOST OFTEN AS THE AUTHOR OF A FAMILY MEMOIR IS:
what did they think of it? Bubbling between the lines of the query there is the presumption of discord and betrayal. It probably comes down to the fact that when memoirs make the headlines, it is usually a family member taking issue with what’s been written. And to that famous quote that, “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”
But it doesn’t need to be this way. My experience of writing The Boy With The Topknot was largely positive for me and my family. I did it with their permission, and though it dealt with difficult issues, and involved having the most painful conversations of my life, the experience, in the end, brought us closer together. And while I wouldn’t necessarily advocate writing and publishing to everyone – each family is different, and it is impossible to predict what the consequences will be – I’d heartily recommend the main process behind it. Namely, interviewing family members.
Indeed, while my book was inspired by a personal crisis – escaping parental pressure to marry someone of a certain background, and belatedly discovering my father and sister suffer from schizophrenia – most family memoirs begin when someone dies. The first challenge any author faces in such circumstances is that they never sat down with the family member in question and got their version of events. It’s a common regret. And I understand why people don’t do it. I was a professional interviewer before I wrote my memoir, paid to ask complete strangers intimate questions about their lives, yet I found the prospect of getting my family’s story out of my relatives a nightmare.
When I finally decided to do it, there were particular challenges I faced due to my Punjabi heritage. Meeting any part of my family meant navigating loose Indian timekeeping, mounds of food, endless questions about my marital status, TVS blaring in the background, random visitors adding their two pennies’ worth… and, owing to the fact that many of my relatives were illiterate, a lack of documentation and dates. But the main challenges were universal ones. People glossing over stories for reasons of shame and embarrassment. And awkwardness.
This awkwardness runs both ways. It is difficult, even as a writer, to see your siblings, parents or extended family as people with stories of their own. Instead, we feel them as vague areas of warmth and irritation. My advice on this front is to change your physical context for interviews. It’s no use suddenly producing a tape recorder and a list of questions in the middle of Sunday lunch. Question them when you’re in a neutral setting, outside home. If even this feels too awkward, ask them over the phone, or during a car journey. Lack of eye contact can really help. I had some of my best conversations with my mum over the speakerphone on long drives in the middle of the night.
Whether you’re a writer or not, I believe what you learn as a result of such conversations will help you. In my case, facing up to everything my family and I had been through made me feel kinder towards them, and made all of us be kinder towards ourselves: going over it all is sometimes the only way to appreciate the gravity of what you’ve survived. It can also help with the process of grief or trauma to understand the narrative of your life, and the lives of those who brought you into this world.
WHEN INTERVIEWING, IT’S CRUCIAL TO LISTEN.
Most family communication is dysfunctional, with no one really taking in what is being said; a common mistake is to not let relatives complete their sentences. Given space, you may well find they want to talk as much as you want to know. But my final tip is to know when to draw a line and move on. To carry around all of your family’s pain can be debilitating. Families sometimes have secrets for a reason: to keep you sane. It’s important to know where you are from, but don’t let it define who you will be.
The Boy With The Topknot airs on BBC Two this month
Facing up to what my FAMILY and I had been through made me feel KINDER towards them