Ever since Dreaming in German has been available, people come up to me at parties telling me: “I just finished your book, and now I feel like I know everything about you.” I’m never quite sure how to respond. Usually I mumble something about not having thought that out so well. They often grin and say, “Yes, it’s weird, because I know you, but you don’t know me so well.” A side effect of publishing memoir that no one warned me about.
While I was writing, I did agonize over my Dad’s reaction. Especially early on, when my first drafts were powered by my need to express the anger I still felt at him for seeming impervious ( and oblivious) to my pain. When I finally finished the manuscript, I’d gained some perspective, but as I handed him a copy to read, I fretted. I knew I was breaking a family rule. One so basic, no one ever had to say it out loud. “Do not distress your father.”
I needn’t have worried. He read the whole thing in a matter of two days on a visit to my house. I watched out of the corner of my eye, interpreting every facial expression. He did look tense for a few hours. When he closed the book his comment was: “Wow, you struggled with this for a long time, but it came out all right in the end.” Phew. I should have been able to predict that response. My mother used to say: “Your father only sees what he wants to see.” After I recovered from the relief, I was miffed. All my encounters with loss reduced to “it came out all right?” Once again, I’d failed to pierce his defenses. Hmm. Still, he was proud of me for writing a book.
My other concern was my mother’s family. Would Tante Isolde ever hear of the book? My cousins? Shouldn’t be a problem. I wrote the book in English, was publishing it in the US. I have hopes of translating it and releasing it in Germany - anybody know a translator? - but that will take time. By the time I finally navigated the self-publishing process, my cousin Matthias’ stepdaughter had come to the US to teach German, and was my facebook friend. A fact that I didn’t fully register until after I published the book, she ordered a copy and Matthias sent me a picture of himself in front of the Christmas tree, holding it up. I haven’t heard from him since, but he’s always been sporadic at keeping in touch.
What surprised me even more than realizing I had exposed my intimate details to acquaintances and strangers, were the email and facebook messages from fellow displaced Germans. I never knew I was one among thousands. There are facebook groups with names like “Germans transplanted to the USA” sharing their nostalgia. One man whose story roughly parallels my own, suggested I add a recipe feature to my website and sent me some links to his favorite sources for German foods. I suppose simple demographics could have predicted this development. What I never would have predicted is how many other people tell me they identify with my displacement. My dentist said he only moved from small town northern Minnesota to the “Cities” as we call Minneapolis/St. Paul around here. Yet, he said, he understood my impulse to be careful when negotiating the two cultures. “I always think twice about what I say, because I don’t want to offend someone when I visit home. I don’t want them to think I’m talking down to them.”
I guess it proves one of the maxims of memoir writing. The more specific you are in writing about your own experience, the more people will be able to find echoes in their lives.
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