Misery lit (
mis lit,
misery memoirs,
misery porn) is a term ostensibly coined by
The BooksellerThe Bookseller is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. Neill Denny is editor-in-chief of the weekly print edition of the magazine, while Philip Jones is managing editor of the Bookseller.com. The magazine is home to the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year,...
magazine that describes a genre of biographical literature mostly concerned with the protagonist's triumph over personal trauma or abuse, often during childhood (because of the recovery dimension of the genre, some publishers refer to it as "inspirational lit", or "inspi-lit"). The genre is generally considered to be American in origin, but eventually became extremely popular in Britain as well.
Works in the genre typically--though not exclusively--begin in the subject's childhood, and very often involve suffering some wrong, physical or sexual abuse, or neglect, perpetrated by an adult authority figure, often a parent.
Misery lit (
mis lit,
misery memoirs,
misery porn) is a term ostensibly coined by
The BooksellerThe Bookseller is a British magazine reporting news on the publishing industry. Neill Denny is editor-in-chief of the weekly print edition of the magazine, while Philip Jones is managing editor of the Bookseller.com. The magazine is home to the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year,...
magazine that describes a genre of biographical literature mostly concerned with the protagonist's triumph over personal trauma or abuse, often during childhood (because of the recovery dimension of the genre, some publishers refer to it as "inspirational lit", or "inspi-lit"). The genre is generally considered to be American in origin, but eventually became extremely popular in Britain as well.
The genre
Works in the genre typically--though not exclusively--begin in the subject's childhood, and very often involve suffering some wrong, physical or sexual abuse, or neglect, perpetrated by an adult authority figure, often a parent. These tales usually culminate in some sort of emotional
catharsisCatharsis is a Greek word meaning "purification","purging", "cleansing" or "clarification." It is derived from the infinitive verb of transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean."-Dramaturgical uses:...
, redemption or escape from the abuse or situation. They are often written in the first person.
Most critics trace the beginning of the genre to
A Child Called "It", a 1995 memoir by American
Dave PelzerDave James Pelzer is an American author, best known for his memoir of childhood abuse, A Child Called "It".Pelzer is the son of San Francisco fireman Steven Joseph Pelzer , who was of Austrian and Irish descent, and Catherine Roerva Christen Pelzer .Pelzer was born in Daly City, California, to...
, in which he details the outrageous abuse he suffered at the hands of his alcoholic mother, and two subsequent books which continue the story. Pelzer's three books--all recovery narratives dealing with his childhood--created considerable controversy, including doubt as to the veracity of the claims. While the books spent a combined total of 448 weeks on the
New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list, Pelzer acknowledges purchasing and reselling many thousands of his own books.
Jung ChangJung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in mainland China....
's
Wild SwansWild Swans: Three Daughters of China is an autobiographical family history by Chinese writer Jung Chang. First published in 1991, Wild Swans contains a biography of the three female generations of Chang's family: her grandmother, her mother and finally her own autobiography. The book won two...
(1992) and
Frank McCourtFrancis "Frank" McCourt was an American teacher of Irish descent and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, best known as the author of Angela’s Ashes.His brothers Malachy McCourt and are also autobiographical writers...
's
Angela's AshesAngela’s Ashes is a memoir by Irish-American author Frank McCourt and tells the story of his childhood in Brooklyn and Ireland. It was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.-Plot summary:...
(1996) are also seen as seminal works establishing the genre.
Notable British authors of the genre include Kathy O'Beirne, Toni Maguire, Lyndsey Harris, Jenny Tomlin, Duncan Fairhurst, Cathy Glass, and Julia Latchem-Smith.
Popularity
Misery lit has been described as "the book world's biggest boom sector". Works in the genre comprised 11 of the top 100 bestselling English paperbacks of 2006, selling nearly two million copies between them. The Waterstone’s chain of British book retailers even instituted a discrete "Painful Lives" section;
BordersBorders Group is an international bookseller based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Borders is the second-largest bookstore chain in the United States , selling a wide variety of books, CDs, DVDs, and periodicals, as well as gifts and stationery.In 2004, Borders reached an agreement with...
followed suit with "Real Lives".
At the
W H SmithWH Smith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...
chain, the section is entitled "Tragic Life Stories"; in each case side-stepping the dilemma of whether to categorize the books under Fiction or Non-fiction.
The readership for these books is estimated to be "80% or 90% female". Roughly 80% of the sales of misery lit books are made not in conventional bookstores but in mass-market outlets such as
AsdaAsda is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, toys and general merchandise. They also have a mobile network, called Asda Mobile....
and
TescoTesco plc is a UK-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain. It is the largest British retailer by both global sales and domestic market share, with profits exceeding £3 billion. It is currently the third largest global retailer based on revenue, behind Wal-Mart and...
.
Criticism
Some of the genre's authors have said they write in order to come to terms with their traumatic memories, and to help readers do the same. Supporters of the genre also claim the genre's popularity indicates a growing cultural willingness to directly confront topics--specifically child sexual abuse--that once would have been ignored or swept under the rug.
However, a common criticism of the genre is the suggestion that its appeal lies in prurience and voyeurism.
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
writer Carol Sarler suggests the popularity of the genre indicates a culture "utterly in thrall to
pedophiliaThe term pedophilia has a range of definitions as found in psychiatry, psychology, law enforcement, and the vernacular. As a medical diagnosis, it is defined as a psychological disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children...
". Other critics locate the genre's popular appeal in its combination of moral outrage and titillation.
Literary hoaxes
In recent years, several high-profile works in this genre have been exposed as false:
Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust YearsMisha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years is a book by Misha Defonseca, first published in 1997. The book was originally claimed to be a memoir telling the true story of how the author survived The Holocaust as a young Jewish girl, wandering Europe searching for her deported parents...
by
Misha DefonsecaMisha Defonseca , whose real name is Monique , is a Belgian writer and the author of Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, first published in 1997 and at that time professed to be a memoir. It became an instant success in Europe and was translated into 18 languages...
published in 1997 is another recent example of the genre, a book said to be "the most extraordinary story of World War II". It has now been shown to be a forgery, with fabricated and imaginary incidents about a six-year old girl and her relationship with wolves in her attempt to avoid concentration camps. In February 2008, Defonseca publicly admitted that her memoir was false. Her real name was Monique de Wael. While her parents were in fact taken away by the Nazis, they were not Jews but
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
members of the
Belgian ResistanceBelgian resistance during World War II to occupation of Belgium by Nazi Germany took different forms. "The Belgian Resistance" was the common name for the Netwerk van de weerstand - Réseau de Résistance or Resistance Network , a group of partisans fighting Nazi occupation of Belgium...
, and she did not leave her home during the war to find them, as the book depicts. In a statement released through her lawyers to the Brussels newspaper
Le SoirLe Soir is a berliner-format Belgian newspaper. Le Soir was founded in 1887 by Emile Rossel. It is the most popular Francophone newspaper in Belgium, and considered a newspaper of record.-Editorial stance:...
, Defonseca said that the story of
Misha "is not actual reality, but was my reality, my way of surviving" and that there were moments when she "found it difficult to differentiate between what was real and what was part of my imagination."
Forensic genealogists
Colleen Fitzpatrick (forensic genealogist)Colleen Fitzpatrick is a forensic genealogist for major military and civilian organizations.Fitzpatrick received her BA in physics from Rice University, and her MA and PhD in nuclear physics from Duke University, and has 25 years experience working in the field of high resolution optical...
and
Sharon SergeantSharon Sergeant is a forensic genealogist who specialises in researching and tracing international fraud cases, property settlements, and provenance of artifact collections. Her expertise involves biographical research for historians, publishers, authors, and journalists. She attended Northeastern...
were instrumental in exposing the Misha Defonseca
fraudIn the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation....
and the
Herman RosenblatHerman A. Rosenblat is a Jewish-American author and Holocaust survivor who wrote a now-discredited memoir Angel at the Fence, which was planned to be published in 2009. The publication was canceled after it turned out elements of the story were false. The story has now been published as a work of...
fabricationFabrication may refer to:*Various processes in arts, crafts and manufacturing:**Fabrication **Semiconductor fabrication**Optics fabrication**Stonemasonry* The creation of a falsehood:**Lies**Fiction**Fables...
.
Kathy's story, by Kathy O'Beirne (2005), is a claimed account of the abuse the author suffered when being brought up in a Magdalene laundry in
IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
. Investigations showed that the author had lied about her age, education and alleged adoption.
A book by
Margaret SeltzerMargaret Seltzer is an American writer. Her first book, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival , about her alleged experiences growing up as a half white, half Native American foster child and Bloods gang member in South Central Los Angeles, was proven to be fictitious...
called
Love and Consequences, allegedly the
autobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
of a mixed race girl raised on the streets of
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
. It described in detail a life of drugs, sex and gangs. It received rave reviews in the
New York Times, but was later revealed by the author's sister to be a
hoaxA hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive or trick an audience into believing, or accepting, that something is real, when the hoaxer knows it is not; or that something is true, when it is false...
. The author was actually raised in a white middle class family and went to a good school miles from any
ghettoOriginally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live, a ghetto is now described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." - Etymology :...
. It has been withdrawn from sale by
Penguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. Lane's idea was to provide quality writing cheaply, for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. He also wanted them to be sold not only in bookshops but in railway stations, general stores and corner shops. Its most emblematic products...
in the USA as of March 2008.