A Memoir Written For the Ear: A Review of What My Bones Know, by Stephanie Foo
A memoir written by an award-winning audio producer will obviously sound good...but here's why this audiobook works on multiple levels, and why it's not just a book read aloud
When I learned last year that Stephanie Foo, one of my favourite audio producers, wrote a memoir called What My Bones Know, I had a few thoughts.
In the vein of her remarkable honesty, my first thought was shock. Perhaps this is unfair, but to learn that a well-known, high-functioning, award-winning public media personality is also the survivor of complex and horrific child abuse is somehow more shocking.
Her unflinching memoir spares few details about the forthy bowl of rage, abuse, and neglect that she endured, repeatedly, for many years which led to her diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), a diagnosis so new that it’s not even recognized by the DSM.
My second thought was: I definitely want to listen to this.
I have a button that reads, I Still Read Books! This is true…and if you’re also a book person, for sure read the book.
The other truth is that I listen more than I read these days. Books now represent a special refuge for me; a time to turn everything off and sit somewhere quietly.
When I finally found the time and brain space to dive into this new work by Stephanie Foo this summer, I went straight to Audible to find it.
Here’s my succinct review: The audio version is as-good-or-better than the print copy.
Stephanie Foo was one of the original producers at Snap Judgement, a job she landed straight out of college, UC Santa Cruz, where she fast-tracked her way through a degree in just two years.
From there, she moved to This American Life in 2014. Of the many producers at TAL, she’s a name I would listen for. Her stories carried layers of nuance and gratitude, and I could count on them for a fresh perspective.
This past year, I stumbled on LinkedIn posts mentioning her as part of a team (including Rob Rosenthal, a teacher of mine and whose professional opinion I greatly admire) about a white-label podcast home. made which they both worked on. So that became something I reached for, even though white-label work isn’t what I would normally reach for.
This past winter, while teaching undergraduate students at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) about the basics of how to make a podcast for their major assignment in an Urban Studies program, I called upon her TAL story The Favorite to illustrate how the basis for a well-crafted story can be short, but also a book-length story (so don’t be daunted by your subject matter). I also used this as an example to show that a dark and difficult story does not also need to be massively depressing.
I was correct to assume that the audiobook version of What My Bones Know would be deliciously and perfectly created, produced, and delivered. Foo’s narration is impeccable.
I kept checking in with myself as I listened. I was still rapt and engaged with the story, hour after hour, despite the fact that it was entirely devoid of any scoring, sound effects, or any fancy audio staging.
It was very un-produced, but also completely, totally engaging.
Ten hours of audio slipped by effortlessly, while also allowing for recall of details and stories. As I stared out the window of my car into traffic, as I folded stacks and stacks of summer camp laundry, while I raked up a giant pile of rotting crab apples, I was there, layer upon layer.
Foo writes the way she speaks and she speaks the way she writes
It’s a seamless experience. As I listened, it was clear to me that she had honed her craft of writing by writing for radio, for the ear, and not for the page. And that made the audiobook experience the best I’ve heard since I listened to Clare Danes read The Handmaid’s Tale.
What does that mean, in detail? It’s about the way that her stories are inviting and connecting, even when they describe difficult moments. It’s in her tone, which is warm and connecting, despite the fact some stories share details from a story that might allow you to conclude that she was completely disconnected from reality.
Because she writes as a narrator, she invites you into that thought process. She gives you the feeling that you are being spoken to, in the same room as her.
And like a good audio producer, she fact-checks her own emotions and memories and tells you when they are wrong. At different moments, he’s self-effacing and charming, other times she straight up calls herself out. But it’s never so much that she doesn’t come off looking like a basket case. It’s balanced and thoughtful, clear and even.
Foo approached the topic of her diagnosis with the stance of a journalist
She interviewed multiple academics. She went back to her hometown of San Jose and old high school to fact-check her own memories and to reconnect with old friends and teachers to see what their memories held. The result was a mixed bag of honesty, clouded by privilege in some cases. Where there were inconsistencies, she shared these errors and omissions.
But the real gem of the audiobook version comes in the concluding chapters, when Foo makes another attempt to connect to a new therapist, and seeks out Psychologist Jacob Ham, who agrees to take her on as a pro-bono client. In his day job, he’s Director of the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City.
But the brilliance of this experience, seemingly perfectly tailored to a seasoned audio journalist, is that he also agreed to let her record her sessions and then gave her permission to use them for her work.
I imagine the book version would have inserted transcribed portions of the interviews, but the audiobook has the actual clips from their sessions. And like a good narrative podcast episode, she then turns the microphone on herself. At times, it almost sounds like a classic TAL episode.
Foo uses tape as a scene exposition, then reflects overtop with narration, then goes back for more tape to contradict or clarify her narrative thought, and then offers a more nuanced conclusion by narration overtop; a mini four-act structure.
As I listened to these chapters, I couldn’t help but think that this was the real gift for her. These are all her sharp tools; to allow her to transcribe, edit and then narrate her journey through her therapeutic recovery could not have been more perfect. I got the sense that it was during theese sessions that she actually gained some significant ground towards reconciling, rewiring and rerouting some of her challenging memories and chronic behaviours.
It also made me think that this could itself be an actual model for therapy. Using all the tips and tricks of field tape production; recording interviews, and then allowing both pateint and clinician to comment and respond to moments from the session could extend the therapeutic experience into a new quadron, as it did for Foo.
It was also through this experience that Foo learned how to digest and comprehend what was “in her bones.” Decades and layers of intergenerational trauma can be explained through this door opening. And as Foo says, it’s not about changing, or expelling, the memories and the experiences that are exposed during these awakenings. It’s about learning to live with it all differently, in a way that can allow for love and happiness.
“I am the common denominator in the tragedies of my life…I am a textbook case of mental illness,” Foo writes. But that does not make her pitiful or pathetic.
When I got to the end, I wanted to jump up and down to congratulate her on having the courage to try so many things, and walk down these difficult corridors. She also helped me to understand why she’s not “healed” in the classic sense of the word. Healing is a journey, not a destination.
The chapter where she tells the story of her proposal made me weep. It was moving and personal, and it made me understand exactly how she had learned love, real love, which is beautiful beyond all knowing. Via Twitter, I have learned she’s about to have her own child; I cannot wait for her to experience that sort of love.
What “her bones know” is that there’s a lot that came before her, which helps to explain what happened to her. But it also helps her to understand how to live now, and how to heal, continusously.
This book is not about apologies, or a cure, or even the diagnosis. But like any good story, the devil is in the details.
Next week we’re going back to work…with Claire Tighe.
Come back to find a discussion about how to land freealance clients, what the climate for work is these days…and how she gets it done.
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