412 festival comes to Pitt — Author talks incest

Writing about incest isn’t easy — especially when it is your own experience. Author… Writing about incest isn’t easy — especially when it is your own experience. Author Kathryn Harrison did just that in her novel “Thicker Than Water” and her memoir “The Kiss.”

Harrison, who has published both fiction and memoir, spoke as one of two featured speakers at the 412: Creative Nonfiction Festival on Saturday evening to a full auditorium in the Frick Fine Arts building.

Harrison said “Thicker Than Water” contains fictional details to obscure the identities of the characters. For example, her father’s character, instead of being a pastor, is a politician. She said this fictional account includes created details that become symbolic of the incestuous relationship between her and her father.

“The Kiss” is much more spare and stark, and it gives a much darker look at the relationship, she said.

Harrison wrote the memoir because of the way she felt after having published the novel, she said.

“The thing I hated about the novel is that I took a central crisis of my life that grew out of betrayals of relationships for decades, and I had written about it [as fiction],” she said. “Then I realized that I had complied with the societal directive not to admit to it.”

When she wrote “The Kiss,” she wanted to write a memoir about the relationship between herself and her father. Instead, she wrote a memoir about her damaged relationships with her parents.

Harrison talked openly about personal topics such as sex between herself and her father and her relationship with her mother, as documented in her two books.

“My mother never really loved me in a way that I felt,” she later said.

This comfort became a topic of controversy when “The Kiss” came out. She said that critics at the time said she was a bad mother because she published the book, and that other people said she did it for the money.

In defense of writing private things about herself, she said she’s honest to a fault.

And she’s careful with the people about whom she writes.

“My husband always sees it. He has a different idea of privacy than I do,” Harrison said.

Pitt professor Lee Gutkind introduced her by talking about the significance and controversy of her work.

“‘The Kiss’ made people start to think about memoir, personal essay and narrative nonfiction in a much more special and careful way,” he said.

Harrison used her two books to talk about creative nonfiction and the importance of maintaining honesty and ethics when writing a memoir.

In an earlier session of the festival, she and H.G. Bissinger spoke about ethics on a panel moderated by Gutkind. After her discussion, she answered in-depth questions during a short question-and-answer period.

Her advice to writers was to “lean toward discomfort,” and to have a “no-flinch policy.”