I Love This Book I Hate to Love
I never meant to edit an anthology. Not really. Why would
I? An anthologist is someone who devotes their energies to
other people’s work. An anthology is hard labor. An
anthology requires serious editing. It begs that you maneuver
fragile egos. An anthology produces community, but almost
never major awards.
So how did I come to edit Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from
Interfaith Homes? I got lucky.
I was sitting at the right table at a national writers’
conference. I was chatting with a delightful man, who turned
out to be a delightful editor. I was ranting about how there
is no literature for this strange hybrid-Jewish community
I feel myself to be a part of. I declared that there should
be an anthology of such work. I emphatically proposed that
there is great need for such work.
And he said, “When your agent can’t sell it to
anyone else, you come talk to me!” So I did.
Two years later, I’m intensely glad I wandered away
from my own poetry and off down this strange path, but I won’t
lie—I’ve found myself deeply angry at Half/Life,
resentful of the labor it has meant. I didn’t write
anything else for those years. I had to forget about my own
thoughts, the images that fill my own brain. I had to focus
on other people.
Almost immediately after I signed the contract, my life began
to be about my contributors and their complicated, difficult
stories. I spent late night talking people down from pulling
their essays because they were “too personal.”
Once the book was bound, my life began to be about my readers,
and the choices they were (and are still) struggling to make.
I began to get emails from strangers, from all over the world.
I spent hours just a few weeks ago with a grown man in tears,
desperately afraid to talk about his faith with his fiancée.
Quickly, Half/Life became a tool for advocacy within
the Jewish world, and so for a full year I’ve been an
advocate, touring and talking and meeting with synagogues
and JCCs. I’ve joined boards and spoken to educators.
I’ve held hands and given interviews. I’ve become
some kind of (completely unequipped) “relationship expert,”
and a “religion writer,” whatever that means.
But I don’t just resent the loss of my time and focus—I’m
also resentful of the success Half/Life has been.
Because it isn’t really mine. Of course, when the book
offends someone it’s mine. It was my idea, and that’s
my name on the cover. But when I’m on TV, or the radio,
when I’m asked to speak for “my community”,
that’s not me up there. That’s not Laurel Snyder
the writer. That’s me standing in for my contributors.
Whenever Half/Life touches someone, changes someone’s
life, I have to remember that it’s not my words that
touched them. Those words, stories, memories—they belong
to my contributors. I’m just the conduit, the face,
the secretary.
Which is wonderful, but let’s face it—a writer
is a special kind of egomaniac. I don’t write to advocate
for others. I write because I think that I have something
worthwhile to say. And with this book, I’ve had to put
myself on the back burner.
Which is, in the end, my reward.
How can I explain this to you? How can I adequately describe
the experience of being hugely excited at selling my first
book, and then hugely disappointed when I realized that the
book wasn’t really mine? That it belonged to others?
How can I possibly tell you about becoming my own advocate,
and then helping to build a community of people like me?
It’s been a great and difficult gift.
Half/Life taught me to be a better person. It helped
to teach me my place in the world. It created that place.
I got to be a part of something bigger. I got to feel proud
and happy and accomplished, without the shame that sometimes
accompanies success. The shame of thinking you’re hot
shit, of believing the hype.
This book wasn’t mine, but it gave me a lesson in both
success and humility. I got to promote and support and claim
this project unencumbered by the weight of my own ego. Which
is the blessing of an anthology, as well as the curse. I haven’t
had to fake humility, hide my joy. It’s much easier
to say “my brilliant contributors” than “my
brilliant self” without feeling like a total shmuck.
Now, having learned that, will I take on another anthology?
Not for a long long time. I’m still an egomaniac after
all.