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Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art, and Madness
The evidence at hand: an autobiography - complete with their mother's edits - written by his brilliant and disturbingly religious sister; a story featuring actual childhood events, but published as fiction; perjured court documents hidden in a drawer for decades. These are the clues Robin Hemley gathers when he sets out to reconstruct the life of his sister Nola, who died at the age of twenty-five after several years of treatment for schizophrenia. But Hemley, hampered by a "larcenous heart" that covets his sister's story for himself, discovers that finding the truth in any life - even one's own - is a fragmented and complex task.
Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art and Madness is much more than a remembrance of a young woman who was consumed her entire life by a passion for God. It is also a look at what people choose to reveal and conceal, and an examination of the enormous toll mental illness takes on a family. Finally, it is a revelation of the alchemy that creates a writer: confidence in the unknowable, distrust of the proven, tortuous devotion to the fine print in life, and the sacrifice to writing itself as it plays the roles of confessor, scourge, and creator.
Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art and Madness is much more than a remembrance of a young woman who was consumed her entire life by a passion for God. It is also a look at what people choose to reveal and conceal, and an examination of the enormous toll mental illness takes on a family. Finally, it is a revelation of the alchemy that creates a writer: confidence in the unknowable, distrust of the proven, tortuous devotion to the fine print in life, and the sacrifice to writing itself as it plays the roles of confessor, scourge, and creator.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1998
1 person is currently reading
162 people want to read
About the author
Robin Hemley
35 books34 followersRobin Hemley has published seven books of nonfiction and fiction. His latest book, Invented Eden, The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday deals with a purported anthropological hoax in the Philippines. James Hamilton Paterson, writing in the London Review of Books, call Invented Eden, "brave and wholly convincing." John Leonard writes in Harpers, "Besides a terrific story, Invented Eden is a savvy caution." Invented Eden was an American Library Association's Editor's Choice book for 2003.
Robin Hemley co-edited the anthology Extreme Fiction:Fabulists and formalists with Michael Martone, and is the author of the memoir, Nola: A Memoir Of Faith, Art And Madness, which won an Independent Press Book Award for Nonfiction. His popular craft book Turning Life Into Fiction, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection as well as a Quality Paperback Book Club Selection has sold over 40,000 copies and will soon be reissued by Graywolf Press. He is also the author of the novel, The Last Studebaker and the story collections, The Big Ear and All You Can Eat.
His awards for his fiction include, The Nelson Algren Award from The Chicago Tribune, The George Garrett Award for Fiction from Willow Springs, the Hugh J. Luke Award from Prairie Schooner, two Pushcart Prizes, and many others. He has published his work in many of the best literary magazines in the country, including Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, Boulevard, Witness, ACM, North American Review, and many others. His fiction has been widely anthologized, translated, and heard on NPR's "Selected Shorts" and others. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and has taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Western Washington Univeristy, St. Lawrence University, Vermont College, and the University of Utah, and in many Summer writing conferences. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Bellingham Review for five years.
Robin Hemley co-edited the anthology Extreme Fiction:Fabulists and formalists with Michael Martone, and is the author of the memoir, Nola: A Memoir Of Faith, Art And Madness, which won an Independent Press Book Award for Nonfiction. His popular craft book Turning Life Into Fiction, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection as well as a Quality Paperback Book Club Selection has sold over 40,000 copies and will soon be reissued by Graywolf Press. He is also the author of the novel, The Last Studebaker and the story collections, The Big Ear and All You Can Eat.
His awards for his fiction include, The Nelson Algren Award from The Chicago Tribune, The George Garrett Award for Fiction from Willow Springs, the Hugh J. Luke Award from Prairie Schooner, two Pushcart Prizes, and many others. He has published his work in many of the best literary magazines in the country, including Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Willow Springs, Boulevard, Witness, ACM, North American Review, and many others. His fiction has been widely anthologized, translated, and heard on NPR's "Selected Shorts" and others. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and has taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Western Washington Univeristy, St. Lawrence University, Vermont College, and the University of Utah, and in many Summer writing conferences. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Bellingham Review for five years.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 9, 2012
Nola reads like a scrapbook to me. The experience of reading this book was like taking a family photo album or a scrapbook off of the shelf and flipping through it as Robin Hemley sat beside me and gave me an honest narration of the accounts I was viewing. He opens up his life to the reader, allowing us to pry in, and I feel as though I’m searching through his diary, an intimate, delicate task. It seems as though Hemley went into this search for his sister’s story the way a detective goes out to solve a crime, the ultimate question being, what really did happen to my sister and how did this event effect my life? But in the end, it wasn’t really Nola he was exploring, it was himself and the debris Nola left inside of him.
Maybe a better word, instead of scrapbook, is collage, because the story does not go in chronological order (as most scrapbook tends to). Hemley bounces from one event to the next, skipping through time, compiling a collection of disjoined, fragmented accounts of his sister and of his life. The use of different forms is what makes this feel most like a scrapbook or collage. Hemley cuts and pastes different accounts of this time – letters, diary entries, transcripts, short fictional stories, legal documents – to give a full picture of what was happening. By including all of these different forms from various sources, Nola turns into a unique narration that includes many different points of view. For instance, with the memory of the ghosts, readers hear about Hemley’s account of the incident, and also get to read about Nola’s memory of the same event. Whereas most memoirs I’ve read are only told from the perspective of the author, Nola is able to give a 360-degree account of these years, and of the aftermath.
Hemley is quick and willing to reveal these family secrets, and though his mother praises his work, she admits that she “probably will not read it.” Throughout the book he includes the conversations he has with his mother as he goes through this process of compiling and writing, and while his mother is willing to share information, she always warns him to “not include” something. Of course he does anyway. But, what I found most interesting about this, is that even though she was so hesitant to reveal these family secrets, in her “fictional” short story, she is very open to share, probably because it’s labeled as fiction. In this fictional work, his mother goes so far as to say, “I was a bad wife, I am a bad mother.” If Hemley had written a straight-forward memoir and left out these different forms and accounts, the reader would never get a confessional insight such as the one we read through his mother’s work.
At some parts I felt as though Hemley’s writing was dragging through the mud, steadily loosing speed, like when he is talking about his mother’s first marriage. Though I know it’s important to include these beginning years of Nola’s existence, I believe it could have been done in a more concise manner. This is where a straight-forward narrative would have been appreciated.
The recommendation of this book would strictly be based on the type of person. For someone who likes a quick, easy read, full of action and romance, I would steer them away from Nola. But for an intellectual reader (who is probably also a writer) I would highly recommend this book for its content, but also for the risks it takes and the unique structure it creates. I had only read twenty pages of the book before I called up my writer friend DJ (who is also into spirituality) and told him that as soon as I was done, he had to read it next.
Maybe a better word, instead of scrapbook, is collage, because the story does not go in chronological order (as most scrapbook tends to). Hemley bounces from one event to the next, skipping through time, compiling a collection of disjoined, fragmented accounts of his sister and of his life. The use of different forms is what makes this feel most like a scrapbook or collage. Hemley cuts and pastes different accounts of this time – letters, diary entries, transcripts, short fictional stories, legal documents – to give a full picture of what was happening. By including all of these different forms from various sources, Nola turns into a unique narration that includes many different points of view. For instance, with the memory of the ghosts, readers hear about Hemley’s account of the incident, and also get to read about Nola’s memory of the same event. Whereas most memoirs I’ve read are only told from the perspective of the author, Nola is able to give a 360-degree account of these years, and of the aftermath.
Hemley is quick and willing to reveal these family secrets, and though his mother praises his work, she admits that she “probably will not read it.” Throughout the book he includes the conversations he has with his mother as he goes through this process of compiling and writing, and while his mother is willing to share information, she always warns him to “not include” something. Of course he does anyway. But, what I found most interesting about this, is that even though she was so hesitant to reveal these family secrets, in her “fictional” short story, she is very open to share, probably because it’s labeled as fiction. In this fictional work, his mother goes so far as to say, “I was a bad wife, I am a bad mother.” If Hemley had written a straight-forward memoir and left out these different forms and accounts, the reader would never get a confessional insight such as the one we read through his mother’s work.
At some parts I felt as though Hemley’s writing was dragging through the mud, steadily loosing speed, like when he is talking about his mother’s first marriage. Though I know it’s important to include these beginning years of Nola’s existence, I believe it could have been done in a more concise manner. This is where a straight-forward narrative would have been appreciated.
The recommendation of this book would strictly be based on the type of person. For someone who likes a quick, easy read, full of action and romance, I would steer them away from Nola. But for an intellectual reader (who is probably also a writer) I would highly recommend this book for its content, but also for the risks it takes and the unique structure it creates. I had only read twenty pages of the book before I called up my writer friend DJ (who is also into spirituality) and told him that as soon as I was done, he had to read it next.
Read
September 8, 2012I wonder if bereavement and guilt are inextricably linked, if in some way you haev betrayed the memory of the one bereaved simply by continuing on your own without them. (xxii, Prologue: Larceny)
I try not to feel guilty about any of this, any of these thefts. I've felt guilty in the past, but not now. In a way, I feel proud. I'm telling you "Look what I got away with." I cheated death. I escaped madness. I stole before I was stolen. I want you to know that this is what it's really about. This is about the stories we're allowed to tell and the ones we lock away. I'm telling you this is what I've become good at. (xxii)
What does a five-year-old know or need of ecstasy, but five-year-olds know much more than we sometimes assume, mroe than they can communicate. The problem is communication, that's all, and the long forgetting and learning of our lives. (30, The Ghost on the Staircase)
If I ever become a ghost, I'm sure I will be a good one, not a midlist ghost, but one who really gets into his job--not to scare people, but to observe and stay hidden, and only make myself known in order to cast doubt in those who see me, delicious ambiguity and uncertainty, which, after you're used to it, is really what makes life interesting. (31)
I want to know, DID IT HAPPEN, did I erally see what I think I saw, and if so, then what does that mean? So, even though I was there when I saw this ghost, I still wish I'd been there. (37)
It is precisely the distortions that tell us who we are. It is not the event itself that matters, but what we do with it, how we make it our own. It's not simply a matter of belief--I believe I saw a ghost when I was five tells you nothing about me, and there's no way for you to enter into that experience. But I let my sister tell you the story and I tell you the story in different fashions, and somewhere there, in that space between contradictions, lies a kind of truth that perhaps you can enter into and wonder about. It's not belief I'm after, but wonder, the opening up of possibility. (37)
"I decided--how I intuited this I cannot be sure--that the best method of inducing para-psychological experiences, which involved the sensing of objects hidden from ordinary perception, was that of first causing the subject to see what did not exist at all, simply to accustom him to seeing non-sensory objects. I took him through a series of hallucinatory visions--from canaries (his favorite bird) flying at him through the parlor window to huge distended green fountain pens floating about in midair. When he had finally become completely credulous in the trance state and was able to touch, feel, and see every object I suggested, I decided that it was time to take the step from the purely imaginary to the paranormal." (44, Her Soul's History)
"My father and mother . . . were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists. The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it." -Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (92, epigraph: The Unbridgeable Gap)
But what hits me now is not the bald fact that we both chose the same career, but that our writing involves the same tensions between the irony of the intellect and the yearning for things of the spirit. This seems to me the exact dilemma that my family as a whole has always bee nbound by. In what do we put our faith, holy texts or secular one? Nothing can be read literally, nothing is tha tsimple. Everything is open to interpretation and revision. (103, The Unbridgeable Gap)
To disavow is the mos thuman thing in the world. Betrayal is the most human thing. (115, The Nonexistent Robe)
And I also know that even in a letter, maybe especially in a letter, we consciously manipulate, we embellish, we become a character on the page. I'm not doubting the sincerity of my sister's despair. I'm simply wondering what she wanted from my mother? "A word, a page, anything you write," she says, and that's what strikes me--not "your voice, your words, your presence," but "a word." It's not the nearness of people that can save us, but their words, written down, what they've committed to paper. And I suppose I believe this, too, or I would not have begun this study of my family's words. (139, Crazy)
Ida wanted to frame the letter, and even Joe seemed happy--the beginning, he said, of a distinguished life in politics for me. I was happy for all the attention, but not really satisfied by the letter. The man who answered my letter had not, after all, answered my question. How could this happen? I wasn't only asking for a solution or an excuse. I wanted a reason. (157, Jinx)
So I was a little manipulative, and I know I still am, but I'm trying to do better. Still, this desire to tell the truth and manipulate at the same time creates some essential tension within me. (194, The Shiva Notebooks)
Still, I always believed that if I asked my mother enough times, she might someday tell me something different, not because I thought she was lying, but because I thought the truth could be remade, that perhaps I had heard wrong, that maybe I had remembered wrong, just as I had once hoped that my father would one day be cured of death, that someone would tell me he hadn't died for good. (310, The Space between Contradictions)
"I guess we'll never know," she says, although she doesn't say it dismissively, but in a tone of voice that suggests that not knowing is an answer, just as much as knowing is an answer, the way we say the words of a prayer, and sometimes we don't understand the words of the prayer or its true meaning, but we know what to say at the end of the prayer. We say amen. (313)
I am not only myself, but all the people who pass through me, insubstantial as ghosts, solid as the sand on which I'm running now. Olivia is so far off, her figure diminishing the more I love her. (335, Quieted)
I try not to feel guilty about any of this, any of these thefts. I've felt guilty in the past, but not now. In a way, I feel proud. I'm telling you "Look what I got away with." I cheated death. I escaped madness. I stole before I was stolen. I want you to know that this is what it's really about. This is about the stories we're allowed to tell and the ones we lock away. I'm telling you this is what I've become good at. (xxii)
What does a five-year-old know or need of ecstasy, but five-year-olds know much more than we sometimes assume, mroe than they can communicate. The problem is communication, that's all, and the long forgetting and learning of our lives. (30, The Ghost on the Staircase)
If I ever become a ghost, I'm sure I will be a good one, not a midlist ghost, but one who really gets into his job--not to scare people, but to observe and stay hidden, and only make myself known in order to cast doubt in those who see me, delicious ambiguity and uncertainty, which, after you're used to it, is really what makes life interesting. (31)
I want to know, DID IT HAPPEN, did I erally see what I think I saw, and if so, then what does that mean? So, even though I was there when I saw this ghost, I still wish I'd been there. (37)
It is precisely the distortions that tell us who we are. It is not the event itself that matters, but what we do with it, how we make it our own. It's not simply a matter of belief--I believe I saw a ghost when I was five tells you nothing about me, and there's no way for you to enter into that experience. But I let my sister tell you the story and I tell you the story in different fashions, and somewhere there, in that space between contradictions, lies a kind of truth that perhaps you can enter into and wonder about. It's not belief I'm after, but wonder, the opening up of possibility. (37)
"I decided--how I intuited this I cannot be sure--that the best method of inducing para-psychological experiences, which involved the sensing of objects hidden from ordinary perception, was that of first causing the subject to see what did not exist at all, simply to accustom him to seeing non-sensory objects. I took him through a series of hallucinatory visions--from canaries (his favorite bird) flying at him through the parlor window to huge distended green fountain pens floating about in midair. When he had finally become completely credulous in the trance state and was able to touch, feel, and see every object I suggested, I decided that it was time to take the step from the purely imaginary to the paranormal." (44, Her Soul's History)
"My father and mother . . . were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists. The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it." -Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (92, epigraph: The Unbridgeable Gap)
But what hits me now is not the bald fact that we both chose the same career, but that our writing involves the same tensions between the irony of the intellect and the yearning for things of the spirit. This seems to me the exact dilemma that my family as a whole has always bee nbound by. In what do we put our faith, holy texts or secular one? Nothing can be read literally, nothing is tha tsimple. Everything is open to interpretation and revision. (103, The Unbridgeable Gap)
To disavow is the mos thuman thing in the world. Betrayal is the most human thing. (115, The Nonexistent Robe)
And I also know that even in a letter, maybe especially in a letter, we consciously manipulate, we embellish, we become a character on the page. I'm not doubting the sincerity of my sister's despair. I'm simply wondering what she wanted from my mother? "A word, a page, anything you write," she says, and that's what strikes me--not "your voice, your words, your presence," but "a word." It's not the nearness of people that can save us, but their words, written down, what they've committed to paper. And I suppose I believe this, too, or I would not have begun this study of my family's words. (139, Crazy)
Ida wanted to frame the letter, and even Joe seemed happy--the beginning, he said, of a distinguished life in politics for me. I was happy for all the attention, but not really satisfied by the letter. The man who answered my letter had not, after all, answered my question. How could this happen? I wasn't only asking for a solution or an excuse. I wanted a reason. (157, Jinx)
So I was a little manipulative, and I know I still am, but I'm trying to do better. Still, this desire to tell the truth and manipulate at the same time creates some essential tension within me. (194, The Shiva Notebooks)
Still, I always believed that if I asked my mother enough times, she might someday tell me something different, not because I thought she was lying, but because I thought the truth could be remade, that perhaps I had heard wrong, that maybe I had remembered wrong, just as I had once hoped that my father would one day be cured of death, that someone would tell me he hadn't died for good. (310, The Space between Contradictions)
"I guess we'll never know," she says, although she doesn't say it dismissively, but in a tone of voice that suggests that not knowing is an answer, just as much as knowing is an answer, the way we say the words of a prayer, and sometimes we don't understand the words of the prayer or its true meaning, but we know what to say at the end of the prayer. We say amen. (313)
I am not only myself, but all the people who pass through me, insubstantial as ghosts, solid as the sand on which I'm running now. Olivia is so far off, her figure diminishing the more I love her. (335, Quieted)
September 14, 2017
While this is a beautiful telling of the story of the narrator's sister's troubled life, it goes beyond that. The narrator takes us through his research process, sharing with us his own thoughts and feelings about what he's discovering. This added layer draws us even further into the story as we see more and more of his personality, understanding why this story is important and must be told. The added elements of pictures, documents, journal entries, and short stories also add interest, engaging the reader with the tangible facts of the story. Overall, this was an excellent book.
March 5, 2015
I would award this book five stars for the final few pages.
As the title states, the book is a memoir, and its subject is Nola: her tragic chemistry, and the crises that result, serve as the hub from which the story of an affected family emanates. The author, the younger brother of the poor mad girl, punctuates the memoir with episodic snapshots of remembered events, sometimes supported by the documents supplied by their mother, sometimes undercut by the author's doubt and self-doubt.
The jerky narrative style rings truer to memory than the smooth relation of fiction as events are highlighted by the author's individual lens. I appreciate that he brings humor to what is otherwise such a sobering tale. But best for me are his reflections while contemplating his own little girls and himself:
"What made us want to bring her and Isabel into this world? What made us want to care and risk such loss?....I am not only myself, but all the people who pass through me, insubstantial as ghosts, solid as the sand on which I'm running now....'Love them now, wildly', a voice tells me, sings. If there is fate, it resides in this moment, the crack between fiction and dreams, between prescience and presence, our presences, flashing brilliantly, already gone."
The author mentions another sibling, a brother born between Nola and him, who became an Orthodox Jew, a choice for which the author provides neither cause or context. The two brothers appear to be estranged, which possibly explains his absence from the final events of the book, but it would have been interesting to know more.
Recommended.
As the title states, the book is a memoir, and its subject is Nola: her tragic chemistry, and the crises that result, serve as the hub from which the story of an affected family emanates. The author, the younger brother of the poor mad girl, punctuates the memoir with episodic snapshots of remembered events, sometimes supported by the documents supplied by their mother, sometimes undercut by the author's doubt and self-doubt.
The jerky narrative style rings truer to memory than the smooth relation of fiction as events are highlighted by the author's individual lens. I appreciate that he brings humor to what is otherwise such a sobering tale. But best for me are his reflections while contemplating his own little girls and himself:
"What made us want to bring her and Isabel into this world? What made us want to care and risk such loss?....I am not only myself, but all the people who pass through me, insubstantial as ghosts, solid as the sand on which I'm running now....'Love them now, wildly', a voice tells me, sings. If there is fate, it resides in this moment, the crack between fiction and dreams, between prescience and presence, our presences, flashing brilliantly, already gone."
The author mentions another sibling, a brother born between Nola and him, who became an Orthodox Jew, a choice for which the author provides neither cause or context. The two brothers appear to be estranged, which possibly explains his absence from the final events of the book, but it would have been interesting to know more.
Recommended.
Read
September 21, 2007Perhaps I didn't have the attention span for this, but I've since moved on to another memoir that's worlds more interesting and way better written. This was a ponderous look at the family of the author, but he mostly spent the first couple chapters (all I managed to slog through, life is too short) in uninteresting, self-conscious reflections about the unreliability of the memoir. He weaves together the written and recalled perspectives of his mother and his sister, and unfortunately feels the need to add his exceedingly boring musings on his family, their unreliable narratives and his own attempts at (un)reliability. If you're interested in memoirs that are conscious of the form, check out Janet Frame's autobiography, and leave this one on the shelf. It was a disappointing showing from a good press. Graywolf, I'm a little ashamed of you.
January 6, 2009
This was the first memoir I've ever read, chosen in preparation for a class in non-fiction writing. I think what makes it successfully compelling as nonfiction was Hemley's choice to interweave the stories of all his family members--himself, his mother, his mother's first husband, and some of his brother, wife and children--into the story arc of his sister's descent into psychosis and death. Also, as a writer, it's interesting seeing into the similiarites and dissimilarities of other writers, as most of Mr. Hemley's family have been published. Personally, it was also interesting for me because I started reading Mr. Hemley with his excellent TURNING LIFE INTO FICTION for a class, then met him at a writer's conference and bought a book of his fiction, THE BIG EAR, then finished with this memoir.
April 22, 2013
Sometimes meandering, sometimes a little too self-aware (the genre, not the author or his character in the book). I liked the scrap-booky feel, the collection of documents, the willingness to own up to less-than-ideal human traits (lying, stealing, etc). The whole book isn't just about Nola, it's about Hemley's whole family. I actually found myself wanting to know more, to hear more about Nola than about Robin.
In the end, I found the penultimate chapter about Hemley's grad school girlfriend, Rita, more disturbing than almost anything else in the book - I suppose because it reflects my own very real fears about passing on mental illness to the next generation.
In the end, I found the penultimate chapter about Hemley's grad school girlfriend, Rita, more disturbing than almost anything else in the book - I suppose because it reflects my own very real fears about passing on mental illness to the next generation.
August 20, 2018
About memories of the author's family and schizophrenic sister, told through a journal she kept and other family members' memories of her and of growing up. It looked great but it was so boring and shapeless self indulgent that I gave up on it.
December 15, 2008
Interesting collage-format memoir of the author's schizophrenic sister. Shows the impact of a family member's mental illness on the entire family. I read this as part of my preparation for interviewing the author for upstreet.
June 2, 2010
Haunting and Brilliant.
December 3, 2014
It didn't grab me in the beginning, but definitely picked up steam, and I began to realize that this memoir, as is typical, says a lot about the author.
August 16, 2015
Disturbing, interesting, and frightening in how easily the line of mental illness can be crossed.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews