Danielle Ariano’s debut memoir, The Requirement of Grief, is powerful not just because of the wrenching account of losing her her sister to suicide, but also because of the honest depiction of the years of tumult leading up to Alexis’s death. Ariano captures the cycle of hope and disappointment, forgiveness and anger, healing and self-destruction that will be familiar to those who have cared for someone who suffers from mental illness or addiction. Candid in her descriptions of her difficult relationship with her sister, Ariano reveals a frustration that can only be born of love, allowing readers into her process of grieving this terrible loss.
Near the end of the book, Ariano muses, “As time passes, I learn that grief’s only requirement is that it must be carried.” Indeed, Ariano carries her grief with grace, allowing us to see both her pain and her resilience, acknowledging that grief may someday exist beside “the throes of the deepest joy.”
We were fortunate to talk with her about the process of writing this book.
Baltimore Fishbowl: Could you start by sharing how this book came to be? You mention the early stages of writing about your sister’s death while at Soaring Gardens, a writer’s retreat center in Pennsylvania. At what point did you know you were writing a book? Could you talk a bit about what your process was like?
Danielle Ariano: It was at Soaring Gardens in 2016, shortly after my sister died, that I first I allowed myself to believe I was writing a book. While I was there, I started revising the pieces I’d written over the years and I also wrote down all the details about the events surrounding Alexis’ death – things I knew I would forget later, like the trip to the undertakers and the meeting with the salesman who sold us the plot in the cemetery. I also started trying to figure out a structure for the book, but that was completely premature because so many of the of the more reflective chapters of the book hadn’t even been written at that point, and I was so fresh in my grief.
Whenever I do anything creative—cook, make cabinets, or write—it’s a messy process. I have to let myself dive into the unknown with some element of trust that something worthwhile will come out of it. Creating anything is an act of faith, and you have to have an ability to withstand uncertainty, but I’ll be honest, this book tested me. I had to live in the mess for much longer than I was comfortable with. My writing partner, Judith Krummeck, helped me immensely in this regard because she believed that this story absolutely needed to be told. When I had my doubts, her belief buoyed me.
BFB: Writing the book is one thing, but publishing it is a whole other animal. What was the publication process like? How do you feel knowing your story and your sister’s story will be out in the world?
DA: It’s a weird process to write a book, especially a memoir. For me, I have to block out everything in the beginning. I can’t think about the people who might read it, I just need to get it all on the page. Then, at a certain point there is an absolute shift and the people who I hope will read the book become the focus and I start balancing the art of writing with what an audience will want and need from a book.
Initially, for example, I did not write a suicide scene, but Marion Winik, my professor in the MFA program at the University of Baltimore, pointed out that my audience would need some explanation of how my sister died. Ultimately, the scene was something I wrote after considering the reader and I’m glad to have written it because it expanded both me and the book.
As far as how I’m feeling…having this book out in the world feels like I’m wearing my insides on the outside.
BFB: Many of the chapters are quite short, all of them titled, and at times I felt almost like I was reading prose poems. (In the most wonderful way!) Why did you choose to name each chapter? Did you intentionally keep many of the chapters brief?
DA: I never considered not naming the chapters. It was sort of an unconscious decision. As far as the chapter length, I wrote what I felt needed to be written and sometimes that was long, sometimes short, so I wound up with a lot of shorties, which kind of worked out because the subject matter is very heavy, and I find that short chapters can be a relief, a chance for the reader to exhale and reset a bit. When it came time to arrange the book, I found myself thinking about chapter length as well as narrative continuity.
BFB: What do you hope readers will learn from reading your story? Is there anything related to mental health you wish more people understood?
DA: I think this book shows the ripple effects that one family member’s illness can have on all the other people in the family, as well as the difficulties that the person with the illness experiences. I hope that it’s not an either/or perspective, but a both/and.
For me, the feelings of anger and frustration that I carried toward Alexis brought me so much pain and shame. I felt like I should’ve been a better person, more compassionate, more loving, more understanding, but at the same time, I saw and felt the repercussions that Alexis’ actions sometimes had. The emotions around loving someone through their illness are very complicated. Sometimes, I couldn’t stand my sister. Sometimes I wanted to rush in and fix everything. Sometimes I retreated into my anger.
I guess I hope that anyone who relates to this complex tangle of emotion will feel seen as they read, and they perhaps will be able to forgive themselves more easily when they run up against some of the uglier emotions.
BFB: Did writing this help give you any clarity about your relationship with Alexis? Or if not clarity, do you feel more at peace with it?
DA: More at peace is a good way to phrase it. When Alexis died, we were mostly estranged. I think that if you had asked her in the weeks before she died, whether she thought I loved her, her answer would have been no. Her death suspended our relationship there. There will never be another chance to heal us, but through the process of writing, especially the chapters that I wrote from my sister’s imagined point of view, I allowed myself to see the world through her eyes in a way that I think I was too afraid to do when she was alive, and this has brought me better understanding and I feel more at peace with everything.
BFB: What are you working on these days? How has parenting changed your writing life?
DA: Parenting has placed a time constraint on my writing life in a pretty major way. The only way that I’ve found to write is in stolen time and that stolen time always comes with a tablespoon of guilt. If I want to write, it typically means I sleep less/I write in shorter spans. I might get 30 minutes and I have to take what I can get. On the plus side, being a mom has given me so much material to write about because in considering how I want to raise a child, I have to also reflect on how I was raised. Do I want to teach lessons the way my parents taught me? What will I do differently and why? Even seemingly minor things like how much autonomy Lindsay and I give to Cooper over what he wears, is a rich topic that could easily comprise an entire essay/chapter.
All this to say, I’m working on my next book which will be centered around motherhood in a same-sex relationship, which I imagine is both different and the same from motherhood in a heterosexual relationship. There will definitely be an essay about why my parents wouldn’t let me wear my Dan Marino jersey every day and why they forced me to wear pink.
Events
April 21: Launch, in conversation with Judith Krummeck; Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Rd., 4 pm
May 3: Reading and Discussion, Writing About Mental Illness, with Jeannie Vanasco and Ashley Elizabeth, moderated by Marion Winik; Red Emma’s, 3128 Greenmount Ave., 7 pm
May 15: Panel, “Knowing When The Writing is Done;” Kramer’s Books, 1517 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC, 7 pm
June 17: Reading, Manor Mill, 2029 Monkton Rd., Monkton, MD, 7 pm
