Art & Authenticy

“I could have made everyone happy if I’d chosen to write only about the distant past—my grandparents’ generation, or even just my father’s childhood or my mother’s childhood—if I’d kept the book rooted in the historical perspective.” This is Danzy Senna’s response to the interview question about her family members’ reaction to her memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
From reading an excerpt from her memoir and hearing her reading in the library, we know that she did not write Where Did You Sleep Last Night? to appease anyone in her family. However, her sacrifice is definitely worthwhile. By telling her story with all its facets, whether they show her family members proud history or their shameful experiences, she helps readers to appreciate the depth of complexity behind one of the nation’s first interracial marriage.
It is this bravery to tell the complete truth that impressed me the most about Senna. While it is possible to require the skills to portray events in one’s life vividly through practice, it requires a strong personality and great determination to put one’s most intimate thoughts on paper published for all to read. By writing Where Did You Sleep Last Night? , she is risking being judged by the world and being condemned for revealing family secrets all in order to bring light to one of the most controversial issues in America’s society, interracial marriage.
As Senna revealed in the later part of the event, writing the memoir is also a service to herself, a journey for her to find out the secret history of her parents and therefore to find out more about her own identity. Nevertheless, it is writers like Senna that produce works that helps us to understand the society that we live in by sacrificing their own privacy.