Don’t Judge <em>I’m Glad My Mom Died </em>by Its Title
The actor Jennette McCurdy’s memoir is a confessional feat that asks what, if anything, adult children owe an abusive parent.
In every memoir-writing class I’ve attended, someone has inevitably asked: To this I’ve heard a few answers. First, there’s the approach. In creative-writing workshops and MFA classes, I’ve almost always heard this advice from people for whom dealing with familial consequences appeared to be a thin afterthought. Then there’s the response, which could lead writers to a surprising cooperation but could also scupper their whole project. Once, though, I watched an instructor listen to a student describe a manuscript that dealt frankly with family mental illness and abuse. There was no way to obfuscate the identity of the other family members..
