Lott's ability to capture even the slightest detail amazed me. Often times, I felt removed from usual dorm room setting and transported into his life. On page 146 Lott writes about driving through the rain: "..... and too late I realize it's a storm, the rain upon me in only a moment, heavy rain that fills my windshield before I can even slow down, before I can even get the wipers going full blast; and now, too, the silence of the van is shattered by the pounding of the rain, a dark and ominous sound like the drumming of a thousand saints' hands on the roof." Lott could have easily said," It started raining really hard really fast." He chose to illustrate the spontaneous power of the rain through it's effect on the windshield. By doing so, he personified the rain and put it into action rather than using simple adjectives. However, on page 165 he writes about a man from whom he had bought a car from 20 years ago. Lott seems to remember everything about this man: how he was from Minnesota, he worked at RC, and how he spoke with a tight lip.
These intricate recollections are the very reasons for my speculation. Why, better yet, how does he remember these things?
One possibility is that this event never happened. He may be lying; giving us great detail so as to shy away from the fact that it never happened. You want to believe him; however, the fact that he remembers every insignificant event makes it "sketchy." Moreover, what he chooses to focus in on is noteworthy. For example on page 174 he briefly talks about another woman, "I got engaged to my girlfriend, then broke up with her." If this is a memoir about his life, why is this the first time it comes up, and why is it so brief? You would think that he would give more detail about this event rather than his buying a car event. Marrying a woman is a bigger event than buying a car. If this is a memoir about his life, this memory should be filled with details about how he met her, how long they dated, and of course, why it ended. Yet, none of this is included. Apparently marrying a woman is not a big deal to him; otherwise, he would have written more about it.
Another memory that he appears "sketchy" is that of his days as the neighborhood paper boy. He recounts the early morning trips around the block passing out newspapers. "I turned left onto 28th and away from mountain, threw all the way down to Bell Road, where I turned right and threw a couple houses, then right again and back into the tract, the streets flat and straight down here. I threw to Mr. Morrow, the editor of the local weekly, Valley News and Views, his son Tom the one to deliver it every Thursday; I threw the Machmers, who'd spray-painted their gravel lawn a dark green, as if we'd all be fooled into believing it was actually grass in their front yard." This event happened over twenty five years ago. How can he remember all of this? Once again he uses a great amount of detail to convince us that he really was a paper boy. Bret Lott seems to doubt his own writing. On page 183, after he has listed bundles of memories, he says, "True stories, all of these." Why would he feel the necessity to reinforce or rather state that they are true? Could he be saying this as an act of reassurance? Maybe he is affirming they are true, because he secretly questions the truth himself.
As I started reading, I noticed that this book is more up-tempo than The Liar's Club. It seems as though Lott had a higher quality of life than that of Mary Karr's. It appears that everything just goes right for Bret Lott. Once again, this enormous stretch of good fortune is almost too good to be true. When Mary Karr wrote her memoir, it was filled with joy, excitement, laughter, sorrow, anger, and even hate. Bret Lott's book appears to be lacking the reality of even the slightest of "hard times." Maybe his life was simply love and laughter, but it's hard to believe. You would think at least once in his life, there was a very dramatic moment that changed his view on life. The only time in the book where I felt he got away from this "up-beat tempo" is when he was driving his kids to karate class. "I yelled. I shouted. I threw my hands up in the air, ranted about obeying your father; ranted about the fire ants out there on the grass where we park our old VW Bug, those ants just waiting for bare feet and the opportunity to bite; ranted about never listening to me; ranted about and about and about." Bret Lott is obviously outraged by his son's disobedience.
Bret Lott uses a lot of detail. While this makes for a great story, it doesn't necessarily make for a believable account. Since he uses detail to such great extent in typically nonessential moments, I believe it hinders his reliability. There is fine line between what you believe and what you want believe.
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