Monday, January 28, 2013

WRITE to the Heart of the Matter: Biography

Sissy Spacek
my extraordinary ordinary life
by Sissy Spacek with Maryanne Vollers

First confession:  I have never seen the movie "Carrie" in its entirety.

Second confession: Before I read this book, I knew nothing about Sissy Spacek's real life.

So, why did I decide to listen to the audio version of my extraordinary ordinary life? Certainly because I love to read biographies and listen to autobiographies read by the author even more. Yet I can pinpoint at least three more reasons why I was intrigued.

1) I loved Sissy in the movie A Coal Miner's Daughter.  I liked Tommy Lee Jones, too, but was fascinated by Spacek's performance.

2) I loved Sissy in the movie A Blast from the Past. She is not the lead in this movie, that billing goes to Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone.  But, Spacek's scenes are some of the best as she portrays the memorable Helen Webber. In particular, she shines when the family watches The Honeymooners and during her son Adam's 30th birthday party. It is a great family film.

3) I saw Sissy on the red carpet for an event this past year, and she was accompanied by her daughter. During the brief interview, the ease and love between the two was evident. Surely someone who was a talented actress and had raised a beautiful daughter would write a book I would want to read.

I was not disappointed. There were times as I listened to the book I felt that Spacek wrote specifically for me.  In the second chapter, she details her genealogy, one of my lifelong passions.  Spacek's knowledge of her family tree would amaze most personal historians. She definitely worked her way right into my heart as she wrote:
"Daddy was proud of his ancestry and was a great storyteller. His people were simply, hardworking farmers and merchants who knew the value of a zlaty and felt a strong, almost mystical connection to the land.
The first to arrive in America was my great grandfather, Frantisek Jan Spacek II, who was thirteen in 1866 when he left his family's farm in Moravia to sail to Texas...In 1875, Frantisek married Julia Gloeckner, whom he had met on the long passage from Moravia to Texas. Frantisek flourished in the new world. He opened a grocery store and saloon in Fayetteville, and at one point he had a six-hundred-acre farm, rental properties, a livery stable, and beer agency (Spacek, pg. 21).
If genealogy is not your thing, don't give up on this book. Keep reading.  This critical chapter shows Spacek knows who she is and where she wants to go. These people, their stories and places influenced Sissy and her choices throughout her life.

Her retrospective is so well written I believe I walked her path with her.  I vividly see her brothers, her experiences in New York with her cousin Rip Torn, and her view of all of the sets on which she stepped foot.  One of the most poignant moments is when she describes when her mother, who is suffering from cancer, is forced to leave the family home for the last time. Spacek writes:
Daddy told us about the morning he took her (Sissy's mother) to the hospital, when it was clear that was where she needed to be. My father was saying,"C'mon, Gin. It's time to go, sweetie." But she kept walking around the house, looking at everything. This was the place she'd loved best. This was where so much had happened. All those chickens she'd fried and the scrapes she'd bandaged. Susan and Peggy and Imogene at the kitchen table drinking coffee, hearing the morning school bell and rushing us into the car and off to school. The laundry she'd hung out while the marching band played...and all those sugar sandwiches. I'll bet that's what was flooding through her mind that morning, all those sweet memories. She stood in the living room for a long time, Daddy said, just taking it all in. Then she took a breath and turned to go.
All her life, my mother had believed that our minds are the builders of the universe (Spacek, pg. 207).
Spacek opens up her heart and shares every moment of her life from that perspective.  Family historians can learn from Spacek that your book does not have to be a chronological diary to tell the whole story.  It means paring down the diary to the heart of the matter. Spacek excels at it.

Sidenote: I have watched A Coal Miner's Daughter many times, and I loved the actor who played her father.  The image Loretta sees of him coming over the hill only to fade into the image of her neighbor remains embedded in my mind.  I never realized that the actor who so impressed me was Levon Helm.  I thought I was the only one who didn't know this until I shared the story with my future son-in-law.  When I mentioned it to  him, the look on his face told me I was not alone. Neither of us had connected the dots from the actor to the famous musician and songwriter.  That insight and many more make Spacek's book a must read for 2013.