This Story will Change, Elizabeth Crane, a review
This Story Will Change: a Memoir
Elizabeth Crane
Counterpoint, 2022
A Review
I might have met Betsy Crane in Chicago—or simply imagined I did. There was a friend of a friend connection we have, some slight thing in the past. ALSO there was her photo in the bottom level of the Harold Washington Library I’d occasionally see when attending events in the library auditorium. She was a recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation 21st Century Award.
I might have also met her through her stories and novels. But this was fiction.
Her latest work is about the Happily Ever After where the novelist falls in love, the couple adopts a dog, both find success—but the happy is somewhat more elusive. Through reading the memoir you (and possibly the novelist) discover that there are signs along the way, pinpricks of revelations. Nevertheless, the novelist is blindsided by a confession from her husband and the two separate.
I think we’ve read this story before.
It is also my story: where you are going along and then suddenly you’ve walked off a cliff. This is never good. Oh, sometimes good can come from a fall, but always there is hurt.
I love Betsy’s work because whether she realizes it or not there is humor and a sense of “hey, let me tell you this weird thing” that ultimately feels raw and genuine and intimate. A bit like another Chicago-ish writer with the same first name, Elizabeth Berg.
Anyway, like catching up with an old friend—which is why I sometimes think that I’ve actually met her somewhere before.
Her latest memoir is a heartbreaking read of walking off a cliff and picking herself back up.
Elizabeth Crane
Counterpoint, 2022
A Review
I might have met Betsy Crane in Chicago—or simply imagined I did. There was a friend of a friend connection we have, some slight thing in the past. ALSO there was her photo in the bottom level of the Harold Washington Library I’d occasionally see when attending events in the library auditorium. She was a recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation 21st Century Award.
I might have also met her through her stories and novels. But this was fiction.
Her latest work is about the Happily Ever After where the novelist falls in love, the couple adopts a dog, both find success—but the happy is somewhat more elusive. Through reading the memoir you (and possibly the novelist) discover that there are signs along the way, pinpricks of revelations. Nevertheless, the novelist is blindsided by a confession from her husband and the two separate.
I think we’ve read this story before.
It is also my story: where you are going along and then suddenly you’ve walked off a cliff. This is never good. Oh, sometimes good can come from a fall, but always there is hurt.
I love Betsy’s work because whether she realizes it or not there is humor and a sense of “hey, let me tell you this weird thing” that ultimately feels raw and genuine and intimate. A bit like another Chicago-ish writer with the same first name, Elizabeth Berg.
Anyway, like catching up with an old friend—which is why I sometimes think that I’ve actually met her somewhere before.
Her latest memoir is a heartbreaking read of walking off a cliff and picking herself back up.
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