aI am an avid reader of newspaper columns, and the ones I always look forward to are the ones about something going wrong — the breakdown of a family, a little night sickness, the slow death of a dog — and I read with interest and horror. The Observer In celebration of our 60th anniversary, we've brought you many memorable columns over the years. Some have been published in books, some have been used as examples in trenchant debates about the state of journalism, and many have pioneered a new type of honesty. In these pages, Katherine Flett wrote about splitting with her husband, and her successor, columnist India Knight, wrote a year later, “Stop me if this sounds familiar, but my husband is leaving me.” More than 20 years later, I still read it with my hand over my mouth.
For 50 weeks a year, most columnists pen happy musings about their love of baths or the realization that no one laughs on the bus anymore, but then one day something terrible happens and, as they share it and get to know them through stories of their cats and wives, readers tune in.
As a columnist, I'll admit that there's something of a relief when something horrible happens: Not only do I have something to write about delivered and wrapped as a gift, but I also have the chance to retell the story in a way that's meaningful to me and that I can possibly control, and, more importantly, I know that it will resonate with my readers far more than a column about something lighter or easier or less interesting.
When a non-writer friend is having a terrible experience, I sometimes think what a blessing it is to have the opportunity to experience a similar horror and write a column about it, despite the vehement objections to hiring people (usually women) to write about their worst moments for 36p a word. There is the hard work of retelling, shaping and concluding a story, and the simple, almost businesslike neatness of delivering bad news. But on the few occasions when I have written something that could be called confessional (for example, when I wrote about a shocking medical diagnosis or the pain of a family tragedy), I have been surprised, moved and sometimes embarrassed by the response. I received letters of concern, and loads of notes from strangers wanting to share their stories. I received confessions, rants, advice. Stories beg stories, right? And a strange and heterogeneous community builds in my emails. The problem is that it can feel dangerously seductive. The more vulnerable you are prepared to show, the more attention you will attract.
When I first took up this assignment, I was nervous about how much I would have to reveal about myself. And yet, as I write about my experiences, I remain acutely aware that not everything that happens to me is unique to me, that I am part of a group of people who may feel hurt or humiliated by the tone I use to communicate to my readers. For this reason, I sometimes speak in a roundabout way when I talk about my life. And for this reason, I remain in awe of the queen of confessions, Liz Jones.
She is a writer who has been exposing society's more shocking neuroses and vices for decades. Daily MailThere are columns about facelifts and eating disorders, about stealing a boyfriend's sperm in an attempt to get pregnant (and why men should be wary of depressed women), and, in my recent astonishment, about a woman who reunited with her cheating ex-boyfriend after 15 years and wrote down every dirty word he said to her over lunch. While some people write confessional columns solely for the money or momentary fame, others are seeking a kind of redemption by telling their stories from their single perspective.
Years ago, a wise editor told me not to worry, because Jones knew exactly what she was doing, but having seen how addictive self-disclosure can be, I still wonder. But I do know how fascinating it is to read the genuine thoughts of someone so obviously hurt by men, by the media, and maybe even by us.
But by the same token, The Observer As you read through the columns, from Sue Arnold's 1979 article about “making sweet conversation with a taxi driver,” to Jean Moir's article about being stuck in the toilet because she knew she had only 26 cents a pound to tip, to Phil Hogan's article about taking his kids out for a day, to Barbara Ellen's article about Poppy, something else becomes clear. There are big columns about divorces, drama, death, but the weeks about cleaning your car, losing your cat, getting distracted on a walk are far more revealing, far more truly confessional. It's the details, not the drama, that make for memorable columns.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on X. Eva Weissman
