Word for Word

Laurie Lisle’s memoir, as her title indicates, has to do with an author’s need for self-fidelity in the search for truth that all honest writing must be. Factual accuracy is of course what a journalist aspires to, and this author does begin her writerly career as a journalist. There is indeed plenty of truth-facing in her book, which often gives the reader the impression that the author is balance-walking through her life on the edge of a knife of fortune and decision-making, leading us with her by the hand or reminding us of our own halting stories.

Truth, however, is not a catalog of accurate facts, but requires and even fosters reflection and wisdom as experiences compile into patterns. As the biographer of two artists who are, above all else, true to their art and to themselves, Laurie Lisle develops a reflective consciousness of her own informed by, but larger than, the sum of her remembered (and carefully archived) personal experiences. It seems perfectly in keeping with the course of her self-narrative that the book ends in her garden and in her memory of her mother, where the sharp ego-involved edges of family, career, and marriage conflicts that she has led us through diffuse into a tranquil place of belonging and forgiveness. Word for Word is a book that accurately captures the challenges and accomplishments of a woman’s life as it was lived through the second half of the last century into our present time, but that lifts itself out of the anxiety of what it means to struggle day-to-day to place us in the peace of the serene gaze of memory, serene because memory allows us to leave go of ourselves. This self-forgetting is, after all, what allows us to remember, as Marc Augé reminds us: “Memories are crafted by oblivion as the outlines of the shore are created by the sea.”

Beautiful. As someone who also answered "writer" when asked what I wanted to be, I could relate greatly to this title. Maybe now I'll put feet to those dreams and begin! It was encouraging to read Laurie's journey and I highly recommend it to readers and budding writers.

WORD FOR WORD, A WRITERS LIFE
BY LAURIE LISLE
#WordforWord,#NetGalley,#LaurieLisle,#GirlFridayProductions

Laurie Lisle has written a memoir of her aspiration from young of becoming a writer.
She was raised in a strict family by her mother and stepfather in New England. Inside and outside of the house, and verbal restrained and the reluctance of what one thought about, ruled.
Laurie had a habit of writing down thoughts in a diary and journal from a young age. She felt alone among classmates. In fact, in a letter to a boyfriend, she says” I give my best indirectly through writing” She compares the lives of other female writers such as Virginia Wolf, Betty Friedan, Shulamith Firestone, Kate Millet, Robin Morgan and others. How they managed to be writers.
After graduation, she started as a reporter on Wall Street. However, her dream is to write her own story. Simultaneously, her thoughts are, can she manage writing if she is married, a wife, a mother. Will she be free to pursue her thoughts without the family support needs? Will she continue to write when she felt slighted or opposed? Writers required their own space. She also noted that a few middle-class wives had careers. It is either working or parenting. The housewives' syndrome petrified her. A suburban housewife was living in a ”comfortable concentration camp.”
Laurie wrote a biography, Portrait of an Artist, about an elderly artist Georgia O’Keeffe, famed for her Mexican landscapes. Gerogia O’Keeffes life has answered Lauries many questions about how many women in the arts had managed to express themselves so fully, freely, and fearlessly for long.
Another biography, A Passionate Life, about sculptor Louise Nevelson, followed and Laurie was writing other people's stories. Eventually, Word For Word, is her story, her thoughts and emotions of becoming a writer.
A good read, especially for budding writers.
I rate it a 4 star read.
Thank you, NetGalley, Laurie Lisle, and Girl Friday Productions for an e ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is an adventure I never knew I needed as a writer. Dripping with empathy and real-life wonderment about the highs and lows that cleave to writers and the intersection with day-to-day variables—such as relationships, hobbies, sacred spaces and more—Lisle is ever a timeless artist in her medium of words and their arrangement.

Unexpected, essential surprises touched me deeply—as a woman without children, when I pondered her sentiment, “I recognized that creative work that demands inspiration and inventiveness, as well as many hours alone, needs to be protected and nurtured not unlike taking care of a child.” Freedom flitted off these pages. Whether the reader works in literary circles or simply desires to read about the life of an intentionally-perseverant woman, I wholeheartedly recommend this work.