She’s one of the few South African writers tackling the genre that is biography and memoir, and she’s doing it pretty well! With two successful biographies under her belt, Joanne Jowell’s latest biography The Crazy Life of Larry Joe has just hit bookshelves. Not sure if you’re a biography fan? Check out our interview with Joanne before you make up your mind.
GLAMOUR: As a writer of memoirs and biographies, how do you choose your subjects?
JOANNE: It’s both a case of me choosing the subject and the subject choosing me: we find our way to one another in roundabout and fabulous ways. Stories may be referred to me by my publisher, mutual friends, other writers or even my hairdresser (as was the case in On The Other Side of Shame)! I generally don’t go knocking on people’s doors asking to write their story because it’s essential that they are in a state of absolute readiness to embark on the process with me. So I usually find that the experience is more productive, and the process smoother, if subjects come to me when they are ready to write a book rather than the other way round.
What is the most difficult thing about a writing a biography or memoir?
This has to be managing my subject’s personal sensitivity about difficult, shameful or embarrassing elements of their life story. I cannot force a subject to reveal something they would prefer to remain hidden, but I can encourage them to view their story as objectively as possible because that secret nugget is often the key to great dramatic irony or juicy detail which may turn the entire story on its head. Confidentiality is also tricky terrain: knowing what information should be rephrased, properly credited or even omitted entirely. This is where I often grapple with the idea of changing names to protect identity: I prefer to use characters’ real first names as I feel that this goes to the heart of the book’s integrity as ‘non-fiction’ but sometimes – for legal, ethical or simply humane reasons – it is just impossible to do so.
You studied psychology at university. Do you find that your background in psychology helps you write memoirs?
My academic psychology background helps, my intense personal interest in humans and their issues helps more, but my tendency to engage the help of psychologists/counsellors through the telling and writing process helps the most. I could never manage to write an entire book without eliciting the input of my own therapist who helps me sort through the jumble of words, emotions and reactions that memoir necessarily provokes.
What drew your to your latest subject Larry Joe, an ex-convict, as a subject?
Larry’s story, simply as a story of ‘gangster makes good – and tries to stay good’, is fascinating in its own right. It is detailed, complex and blows open a world that I had never really engaged with before now. But Larry as a person is what really draws one in. He is charismatic, enigmatic and a really cool guy to spend time with, who sings like an angel. He thinks deeply about issues, but generally buries the things that have hurt him most; accompanying him on the journey of unpacking his challenges and dusting the cobwebs off his past was a fascinating process.
Larry Joe has, as you’ve mentioned, led a crazy and interesting life. Did you, at times, dislike the person you were writing about because of the crimes he committed or feel sorry for him? If so, how do you prevent these feelings from colouring your writing?
I would be lying if I said that Larry’s criminal escapades as a master thief, or deep involvement in the Number gangs, or previous drug addiction didn’t concern me greatly. But my mission was to get to know the Larry of today, the one who has made it his life’s work to move beyond those definitions of himself and to embrace a free life as a musician and changemaker. The best way to resist allowing my feelings about Larry’s problematic past from colouring my writing is to simply write about it. Readers may feel just as I did when Larry recounts the dodgier side of his life, and I like to mirror a reader’s experience. Also, it is really important to me that my characters speak for themselves: I don’t put words in their mouths; their words in the book are their words to me during interviews. So readers can form their own conclusions, and hopefully we can travel that road together through the course of the book as a whole, rather than getting stuck on one phase, incident or characteristic. Finally, there is the critical issue of boundaries. I need to be firm about those, really firm. It is not my job to help, save, redirect or catalyse Larry’s life in any way. It is my job to document it and spread his message far and wide.
Describe the process of writing a biography or memoir.
It is a fairly lengthy process which, for me, is almost more about building relationships than it is about writing. The writing itself can even be the shortest part of the process, and comes right at the end.
I spend many hours with my subjects, doing interviews, chatting over cups of coffee, visiting appropriate sites. I read whatever material my subjects are reading and try build as complete a picture of them as possible. My interviews are recorded and transcribed; once that is complete, I spend many hours sifting through vast quantities of material to fashion a book out of a life. There are phases when the work is full-time and phases when there is less going on. But, for the duration of the project, it is all-consuming because I need to start to inhabit my subject’s world – in thought if not in action – and I spend much of my time thinking, wondering and worrying about them, even if I’m not interviewing or writing.
How do you go about tackling a subject as overwhelming as a person’s entire life?
How do you ‘eat an elephant?’ (Which I don’t, because I’m vegetarian. And a conservationist): One spoonful at a time. If I had to think about writing a full life story, I might never begin, because the prospect seems so daunting. I focus on my relationship with my subjects, and we begin…well…at the beginning. It is only eventually, at the writing stage, when I need to start sifting the wheat from the chaff, that I even allow myself to consider their life as a book and begin to concern myself with things like structure, plot and characterisation. Very often, my subjects do become my friends (bearing those all-important ‘boundaries’ in mind all the time) and I focus on building the friendship before writing the story.
What do you turn to for writing inspiration?
I find that I don’t look for inspiration in the way that a novelist or a poet might. I look for collaboration.
My publisher, Andrea Nattrass at Pan Macmillan, is a constant support through this process. She is always available to consider ideas and thrash out problems. As is my psychologist, who helps me make sense of the relationships I am building and maintain boundaries. And there’s my husband, who sits as an objective outsider to the story, but has to deal with my enmeshment in it. Confidentiality is important – particularly at the beginning stages of a biography – but it’s essential for me to be able to talk about my projects and work through issues I may encounter, so I need to find appropriate, reliable and trustworthy cohorts on whom I can lean as I take up the journey.
Which writers inspire you?
I like a real mix of genres and writing styles: Bill Bryson, Mike Nicol, Jonny Steinberg, Donna Tartt, Marian Keyes, Haruki Murakami, Alexandra Fuller.
Whose biography would you love to write?
I have a particular love of the ‘ordinary extraordinary’ story. I’m not looking to document the lives of celebs or royalty (though some of those would undoubtedly be extraordinary too). I am fascinated by humans and their issues, especially concerning regular people who have unusual life experiences. There are one or two stories I have been courting for some years now, and the names of the subjects aren’t nearly as noteworthy as the extraordinary turns their lives took. So I think that I don’t yet know the name of the person whose biography I would most like to write – they’re out there, living an extraordinary, regular life, and hopefully they’ll find me.
