Back to the 1950s

keep your phrasing in period

Hi Jayinfrance,

It's fabulous that you are having fun telling the story of your small town life in the 50's. Keep it up!

I'm glad to take a pass at answering your question. I think of a memoir as a sort of "period piece" - so in a movie about the 50's you wouldn't expect to see an automobile manufactured in the 1990's - it would break the audience out of period. Similarly, avoid using terms that are clearly developed much later.

Chances are you only need to worry about words and phrases that are really obvious. No-brainer is a good example. But there are really no memoir police, so these kinds of choices are a sort of "collective artistic understanding"

Jerry

Hi Jay, I can just see Dixon of Dock Green on that black and white telly with a bulbous screen.

I remember screw in legs, that came with things like Formica-topped coffee tables. If it's mum insisting they won't do, rather than "funky", I think the term "new-fangled" would be more in keeping.

Talking of new-fangled, I remember my mum having one of those clear plastic corrugated rain hats that opened up from a flat strip. She kept it in her mac pocket with her string bag.

Oops - don't look now, but I'm showing my age! (or maybe my Ipswich up-bringing)

Bon Paques and happy writing.

Her in Cote d'Or

Don't forget the multiple yards of material in skirts, late 50s/early 60s, with sugar starched petticoats or hoops to make them stand out like a lampshade. Add the gondola basket and you were too wide to get on a bus!

Nostalgia...

I was a little boy in the 50's and pretty unaware of fashion, but I recall going to get a sports jacket, and on the vest packet, there was a fake family crest. I remember asking why it was there, and no one could explain it. Does anyone else remember those?

For boys, "hair cuts" at least in summer consisted of an astonishingly short "crew cut" - I suppose these go in and out of fashion, but back then, it was the main style, as I recall.

Jerry

Part of my story took place in 1959, so I understand what you're facing. I tried to recreate the period with slang, mannerisms, clothing descriptions, music, and a lot of fading memories.

I did web searches for all those things and found a lot of good information that jogged my memory. I found that listening to the music as I wrote did a lot to re-open doors that had been long closed.

Returning to that time in my mind was one of the most enjoyable parts of writing the book.

Jay,

The little bit posted has a nice feel to it. But you're right in being suspicious of anachronistic references or terminology. And they're damnably hard to evade. I also was a kid in the 1950s. I'd jettison the "no-brainer", as you suspect; there must be a hundred less dated substitutes. Also, the term "funky" strikes me as rather '60s than '50s.

caw

nostalgia in life story

The topic of nostalgia is a powerful part of the world of memoirs. I find it fascinating to try to put nostalgia into its rightful place. Nostalgia as a thing in itself lives without story. You just try to get those little memory flashes, and perhaps drown the present in memorabilia. That's fine (although not my cup of tea - after a few minutes it feels like an itch I can't scratch.)

I think the process of trying to write it into a story is when it takes on a deeper heart and soul. Look at the movie "Back to the Future" - flooded with powerful nostalgia, but captured in a real story of real people. There are lots of novels like that, but I have not read too many memoirs.

A pretty good one from the early sixties was "Vinyl Highway" by Dee Dee Phelps, of Dick and Dee Dee. I just finished Bryson's Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, which is a coming of age story with lots of period background.

Jerry