Telling the Truth: Memoir, Myth and Magical Realism

By Ann Batchelder

Writing the truth has long been standard procedure for memoir authors. But truth is not fact. For every story, there might be several points of view. Memoir narrators assume readers understand that their book is one version of what happened. Still, it is the memoirist’s job to remain honest. 

My memoir, Craving Spring, is about a mother’s desperate attempt to rescue her daughter from deep depression and addictive behavior – and what she learns about herself along the way. How I chose to stay honest was to only write what was real for me, rather than make assumptions about my daughter’s perspective or anyone else’s. 

At the same time, I was not afraid to write what my experience entailed. As a mother traumatized by her daughter’s suffering, my stress levels were sometimes so high I worried I might be hallucinating. While writing my manuscript, I recalled those psychological states when I seemed to slip in and out of the “unreal.” 

Some label this type of writing magical realism. In fiction, authors may use magical realism as a tool to help readers understand the interior world of a character, to make a point, or to add something supernatural to an otherwise realistic scene. In memoir, such descriptions are not fabricated but real events, at least to the author.  

For example, following are two excerpts from the opening chapter of Craving Spring: 

A man stands against the wall in my daughter’s room at Vanderbilt   Hospital. I call him Malvado. He wears no shirt, just a thin raincoat hanging from his shoulders. It is frayed and stinks of backstreet garbage and days-old sweat, but he doesn’t care. Taking a long drag from his cigarette, he exhales toward the ceiling then squints at me, his eyes like two black lines carved into a bald head. I try to ignore him, pretending not to notice his ashes dropping onto the floor. He knows he’s not supposed to smoke in a burn unit. He knows other things, too. He knows what kind of mother I am. If I’d been different, perhaps none of this would have happened.

And this: 

Lately, [Malvado] seems to be everywhere. At night, while I’m still awake in bed, I often catch a whiff of cigarette smoke coming from the dark edge of the bedroom. It’s him, daring me to sleep so he can sabotage my dreams. Sometimes, when I’m driving, I’ll get a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror. And when I am on the phone, confessing to friends how confused or frightened I am about my daughter, I can tell he’s eavesdropping, rolling his eyes. I don’t have to wonder what he’s thinking. His wordless judgments slip into my brain and twist around until they are tight and true.

Malvado was not created to make my story more enticing. I did, in fact, encounter him as a drawing in a back alley in Spain in 2014. That image haunted me for years. I worried that he was a premonition, a message that my daughter would be facing greater dangers in the future. Try as I might to get him out of my head, it turned out he was right. She went from having an eating disorder in high school to suffering a heroin addiction in college. In my mind, Malvado embodied all my self-doubt and fears. His presence was constant and very real to me–not something I conjured up when I decided to write my book.

Another way I told my truth in Craving Spring was by incorporating a Greek mother-daughter myth. As the story goes, the goddess Demeter has a beautiful young daughter named Persephone who one day is kidnapped by Hades and dragged to hell. Demeter’s anguish matched my experience having a teenager trapped in addiction. 

Rather than simply including the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in the introduction, which was my original idea, I decided to sprinkle my “re-imaginings” of the myth in short chapters throughout my story. I remembered daydreaming about Demeter’s life the first time I read Homer’s story when my daughter was in high school. What did Demeter look like? What was she wearing?  How did she smell or think or feel? My imaginings were not facts. Instead, I took the liberty of writing my version of her truth in my journals because I so closely identified with this ancient mother’s trauma. It helped me feel less alone. By exploring how the myth impacted my thinking about the transitions necessary in motherhood, I was also slowly creating the scaffolding for my memoir.

Here is an excerpt from one of the Demeter (reimagined) chapters in Craving Spring:

Demeter traveled to the farthest corners of the world, searching for her daughter. In each hand, she carried a torch. Looking up from the Underworld through cracks in the Earth, Persephone could see flashes of light as her mother passed above ground.

“I’m down here!” Persephone would shout, but her mother couldn’t hear her—she was deaf from anxiety.

Myths, according to historian Karen Armstrong, have been retold and reinterpreted for centuries, but their main purpose has always been to help people face difficult transitions. This can be said of memoirs, too. Memoirists will always be expected to share an honest rendering of their experiences, but such truths can live in the heart and imagination as well as the mind.

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ANN BATCHELDER is the author of Craving Spring: A mother’s quest, a daughter’s depression, and the Greek myth that brought them together. Her writing and interviews have appeared in several publications and podcasts, including Huff Post, The Rumpus, and Newsweek. After earning a BA from Kenyon College and an MSW from Simmons University, Ann worked as Director of Special Events at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was Editor of Fiberarts Magazine, and Guest Curator for three major exhibitions at the Asheville Art Museum. She lives with her husband in Asheville, North Carolina. Learn more at: www.annbatchelder.com.

CRAVING SPRING: A mother’s quest, a daughter’s depression, and the Greek myth that brought them together

ANN IS CONVINCED SHE IS A GOOD MOTHER until her teenage daughter admits to suicidal thoughts. In a desperate
attempt to rescue her child, she gathers wisdom from therapy, the 12 Steps, and Buddhist teachings, yet she finds her greatest solace from an unlikely source: the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Connecting this ancient story to her experience as a traumatized mother, Ann is vindicated in her desire to save her child but also learns the secret to returning to herself. A memoir about honesty, compassion, and trust, Craving Spring explores the pain and beauty of mother-daughter bonds and celebrates the universal desire for renewal.

“A masterful storyteller, Ann Batchelder takes us deep into the heart of a mother’s love while demonstrating the power of myth to illuminate a path toward healing. Craving Spring is a gift to anyone trying to navigate the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship.”
—Anita Johnston, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Eating in the Light of the Moon

“Craving Spring is so deeply heartfelt that I felt it in my own heart, often pounding as I read—and yet I could not put it down.”
—Lynn Melnick, author of I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive:
On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton

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Category: On Writing