An Unconventional Form: On Writing The Fool and the Magician

An Unconventional Form: On Writing The Fool and the Magician

By 

Angela Lam

I wrote my first memoir about growing up Chinese American in a linear fashion, selecting that liminal space between childhood and adolescence to explore my relationship with my father, a man of many faces, a man who I sometimes hated and sometimes adored but who I always loved. I wanted to reconcile the hard parts with compassion, especially since I had become a parent and I knew the struggle between being kind and being harsh in raising a child to be the best human being possible. Sometimes, even with the best intentions, the parent-child relationship failed, or the child didn’t grow up to become who the parent imagined that child would be, or the parent evolved so that the child no longer recognized the person who raised them. That story was simple to write, a slice of life, with a beginning, middle, and an end. 

Fast-forward thirty years later, and I found myself writing a second book-length memoir. This memoir encompassed another important relationship with my first husband, a man I had spent thirty years with, longer than the nineteen I had spent living with my father. For five years, after the relationship ended, I struggled to process the meaning from that marriage and write about it in a beneficial way for a reader. But that linear structure no longer worked. I needed to find a different form. 

Being a memoir writing instructor, I felt I should have all the answers when it came to writing about one’s life. I didn’t. I considered taking a class from a colleague, but I was told the course was full and I was placed on a waiting list. A space never opened. I continued searching for answers. I read one memoir after another, dissecting the structure. What worked, what didn’t work. I tried out several formats: a collage of stories, a frame between present and past, a focus on theme. None of them worked. Desperate, I complained to my writing companion who I met with once a month who was also writing a book-length memoir. She suggested I take a break and write something else. 

So, I did. I focused on writing contemporary romance novels, crafting stories with a happily-ever-after even after my happily-ever-after ended.

Then my ex-husband was diagnosed with cancer. 

No one knew if he would live or die since his diagnosis happened right before the pandemic and he didn’t receive treatment until a year later when the doctors were no longer afraid of treating him. If I didn’t write that love letter to him now, detailing the story of our life, I might miss the opportunity to share it with him.

But a love letter didn’t work.

Even when I wrote it in the second person.

But I was close, closer with the voice. 

I still lacked a structure.

After dozens of dead-ends and hundreds of thousands of words, I shifted my focus from the memoir to my life. How did I organize my day? Specifically, what did I do when I didn’t know how to move forward? I had a tarot reading. Why not draw the cards on how to tell this particular story? That system always worked when I was stuck with the major decisions in my life. Why not try it with the major decisions of my story?

That breakthrough tarot reading led to my writing The Fool and the Magician. 

I drew a classic Celtic ten card spread and organized the events of my life with the interpretation of each card. This structure allowed me to select the most relevant events to focus on to tell the evolution of a love relationship over the course of thirty years. The story wrote itself within a matter of months. By the time I had finished, I pitched the story to two literary agents who both said the concept of tarot readings was great but the story about a failing marriage was not. Could I please rewrite my proposal to show why women were interested in tarot? And, if possible, could I find other women to share their tarot journeys? Maybe something along the line of Ten Women, Ten Decisions: How Tarot Changed My Life. 

But that’s not the story I wanted to share, so I declined their offers of representation.

And, despite critical feedback, I chose to keep the infrastructure of the tarot to support the foundation of the love story. Not everyone is keen on the occult. But not everyone is my ideal reader. I had to have faith the intersection between free will and destiny would attract the right readers who would benefit from reading about the evolution of romantic love beyond the typical ending of “and they lived happily-ever-after.” 

In book reviews, some readers mentioned the story would be fine without the tarot. Maybe it would. But I couldn’t separate the two, just like I couldn’t separate the decisions I’ve made in my life from my habit of consulting with the cards. The two went hand-in-hand, braided together into a single strand. 

Most importantly, I finished the story right after my ex-husband finished his treatment for cancer. He is not cancer free, but he is in remission. Having been my first reader all my adult life, he read the story before it was published. The most important feedback I received were his comments that the tarot structure worked, and the ending was perfect.

—

Angela Gross writing as Angela Lam

Angela Lam is the author of several books focusing on the lives of modern women struggling to find their place in this ever-changing world. She has spent the past three decades writing professionally for newspapers, small press, and literary magazines. She’s also worked in real estate, finance, art, and forest therapy. An award-winning author, she is the recipient of residencies at Hedgebrook and Vermont Studio Center. She currently teaches writing at Gotham Writers Workshop.

Women of the Crush series
The Fool and the Magician, long-listed for the 2022 Memoir Magazine Book Award
Writing instructor with Gotham Writers’ Workshop
www.angelalamturpin.com
Facebook: Author and Artist Angela Lam
Twitter @authorangelalam
Goodreads: Angela Lam

THE FOOL AND THE MAGICIAN

On the cusp of forty, Angela Lam consults with a tarot reader for career advice and receives the following prediction: she will find a new job and, while there, she will meet a man who will heal her heart. Already married with children, Angela tells her husband who is unconcerned about what the cards reveal. But when the prediction threatens to manifest, will Angela’s family fall apart?

This true story will inspire you to reexamine the definitions of midlife crisis and spiritual awakening as well as challenge the roles of fate and free will in your life.

Longlisted for the 2022 Memoir Magazine Book Award for “a powerful depiction of the transformational power of memoir.”

Advance Praise for The Fool and the Magician:

Lam’s memoir uniquely blends an exploration of love, relationships, mental health, with the more mystical and magical original elements. Her vulnerability and nuanced emotional states allow readers to truly connect to her profound and intimate story.

—Publishers Weekly The BookLife Prize

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