AMAZON SEARCH FOR BITTER, ANGRY, PROFANE MEMOIR

via unabridgedaccess.com

Amazon search is easy, like google, except you can buy the search results right away. Not so much on google prime.

I’m not searching as much as researching the competition during editing breaks of my cancer memoir in the works, and happy to find great books on the topic, though not too many bitter, angry, and profane titles.

One did hit the sweet spot: Home Is Burning by Dan Marshall.

Here’s an audio excerpt on unabridgedacess.com from 2015. It was music to my ears, though I understand why one amazon review called the constant swearing and crude remarks ‘tiresome.’

Tiresome?

If they come in the right time and place swearing and crude remarks move a story to a whole other level. Take Mark Twain for example.

The old river rat apparently swore a blue streak his wife didn’t appreciate. Instead of nagging and harping about it she started swearing too. When Sammy noticed he said something like, “Yes dear, you know the words but you don’t know the music.”

His response reminded me of my mom and dad working out the issue of smoking cigarettes in the house. He smoked wherever he damn well wanted and she didn’t like it. So she started smoking. The old man changed his behavior because he couldn’t stand watching her choke and cough with every drag.

My mom stopped smoking as soon as he changed. She gave it good try, but tobacco wasn’t for her.

Amazon Search Party

Based on amazon search, angry, bitter, profane memoirs aren’t for everyone either, but since that’s my story I wanted to know who else occupied the turf. Home Is Burning was “An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year, 2015,” so someone liked it just fine.

The top three books amazon search customers bought along with ‘Home’ are:

So Sad Today by Melissa Broder

Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw

Charter Storm: Waves of Change Sweeping Over Public Education by Mary Searcy Bixby

Dan’s story moved from outside to inside when his family needed him. Melissa tells an insider story, so does Shane. Mary tells her story from a leadership role.

My story starts outside and moves in when I had to explain a sex cancer diagnosis to a skeptical wife and adult children. The explaining continued in waiting rooms before treatments, during, and after. Does anyone really need an explanation of sex cancer?

My wife commented, “Do you have to explain it in detail to people you meet when I’m there? Call it throat cancer and move on.”

“I could do that,” I said, “but I don’t want the stigma of smoking and drinking cancer.”

I overheard a man waiting his turn for radiation when he told his family, “I’m taking cancer a lot more serious. I even quit smoking and drinking this time.”

From a few seats over I felt the regret in his voice and thought, ‘Should I have regrets?’