{"id":1553,"date":"2009-03-18T17:50:04","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T22:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2009-03-18T17:50:04","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T22:50:04","slug":"author-interview-with-kyria-abrahams-im-perfect-youre-doomed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/03\/18\/author-interview-with-kyria-abrahams-im-perfect-youre-doomed\/","title":{"rendered":"AUTHOR INTERVIEW with Kyria Abrahams: I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allison McCarthy is back with this month’s author interview featuring Kyria Abrahams, who recently published <\/em>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Perfect, You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness Upbringing. Allison is a freelance writer based in Maryland and a recent graduate of Goucher College. Her work has been published in <\/em>The Baltimore Review, ColorsNW, Girlistic, JMWW, Scribble, Dark Sky, and <\/em>The Write-Side Up. \u00e2\u20ac\u201cKristen<\/em><\/p>\n

Kyria Abrahams is a New York-based poet and performer who recently published her first memoir, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Perfect, You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness Upbringing<\/a><\/em>. Her work has previously been featured in the books Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure<\/a><\/em> (Harper Perennial, 2007) and The Book Of Zines: Reading From the Fringe<\/a><\/em> (Owl Books, 1997). I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Perfect, You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Doomed<\/em> recounts her childhood and adolescence raised in a religion where she experienced tri-weekly meetings, door-to-door humiliation, and was told to avoid any \u00e2\u20ac\u0153worldly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d materials that might have had contact with demons.<\/p>\n

She is one of the first writers to break a long silence by publishing on this secluded, cult-like group, and her depictions of life in the religion are uncannily accurate. I ought to know: I was raised as a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness until the age of 13. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a unique life experience, and one that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m now inspired to write about in more detail.<\/p>\n

Abrahams recently took time out from her busy promotions tour and blogging to talk about Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses with a fellow ex-Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness. Over email, she shared her thoughts on outlining life as a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness, intersecting oppressions within the religion, and life after leaving this fundamentalist organization:<\/p>\n

1.) Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t generally a subject for mainstream literature. Why did you decide to broach this topic for your first book?<\/em><\/p>\n

I think it started by talking to jaded hipsters in bars. At some point, I stopped being embarrassed about my childhood and became more open and honest about it. I would tell otherwise disenchanted New Yorkers that I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and they would immediately become interested in my story. When I mentioned I might be writing a book about it, people would say, “I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to read that!” and they genuinely meant it. So I realized there was a gap in the available information about what it’s like to be a Jehovah’s Witnesses versus general interest in the religion, and I wanted to fill it. At the same time, I also recognized that people weren’t interested in a scholarly, academic tome; they just wanted a general outline and an engaging story.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.) The most recent memoirs on Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses often discuss issues of child abuse and neglect (The Truth Book by Joy Castro being one example). Yet your memoir is generally comic and self-deprecating in tone, the darker issues you discuss. Why did you decide to utilize humor in writing this book and how did this approach help to tell the story?<\/em><\/p>\n

Ultimately, my story just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lend itself to melodrama. It’s not like I was a child soldier, I was a middle class fundamentalist from Rhode Island. My life wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t traumatic enough to approach as a dark tale of woe and gloom. Ishmael Beah walked through scorched villages of beheaded children and macheted-off hands. That’s dramatic. Me? I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t celebrate my birthday. Oh, the horror! One was inconvenient, the other needs years of therapy. I missed out on normal childhood rites of passage, but it’s not like I have PTSD flashbacks. Although we did snort a mixture of gunpowder and cobra hearts that the rebel soldiers called \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcblingblang.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the second book.<\/p>\n

The Truth Book was hard for me to read. That is to say \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I thought it was great, but I only got halfway through because I found myself in tears, rocking in a corner in the fetal position. It was the first time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever seen Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses represented in a book and it was too difficult for me to process at the time. I never actually finished it. My book is not dramatic like Joy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, but I also wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t abused in the same way that she was, at least, from what I read. Like I said, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t finish it. Maybe it ends with her waking up in bed in Kansas and realizing it was all a dream. Maybe they have cherry pie. I should really finish that book.<\/p>\n

I think that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s healthy to be able to laugh at difficult things, but I also recognize that some people might not feel comfortable joking about a religion that has helped to cover-up child abuse and been responsible for the death of people’s loved ones by condemning blood transfusions. If you watched your nephew die from being denied proper medical treatment, you might not have as much of a sense of humor about it.<\/p>\n

3.) What were some of the gender and class issues that become apparent in the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness congregation? How are these factors a reflection of the religion’s teachings?<\/em><\/p>\n

Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses believe that women can’t lecture their congregations and that they should be subservient to men. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that kind of sexism is any more pronounced than it is in most religions, though. The Jehovah Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122are pretty lenient compared to other fundamentalists. Their women can do most of the things that men in the congregation do, like knock on doors and have bible studies. But they can’t be in a position of power or address the congregation directly. They also aren’t allowed to teach a man without wearing a head covering — because, as we all know, nothing is more displeasing to Jehovah than looking at a woman’s overgrown roots. Thyne highlights are offensive to the Lord!<\/p>\n

There are a lot of outdated and old-fashioned ideas about women, which don’t necessarily have to do with religion. Women aren’t being buried up to their necks in sand and stoned, but their hopes and dreams are slowly dying. The man is considered the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153head of the household.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A woman is allowed to voice her opinion initially, but in the end, she must yield to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God-given authority of her husband.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It’s very subtle and twisted. The whole concept is built on the premise that if a male-led dictatorship weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in place, couples would fall into utter chaos. Women are treated like irrational teenagers. Sure, they have likes and dislikes, but they don’t ultimately know what’s best for them. The Witnesses claim that the only way to avoid marital strife is for one person to make all the decisions. So it’s just a very limited understanding of reality. It’s a fear-based religion, and this is ultimately another fear-mongering tactic. They’re saying: “Ladies, if you don’t let your man make all the final decisions, he’s going to get mad at you and you’ll lose your marriage!”<\/p>\n

Unlike a lot of religions, though, women are usually allowed to work outside the home. Of course, that means you get to be a receptionist or a housekeeper. I didn’t know any women who had high-powered careers. This connects to the class issues. I didn’t personally know any rich Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s become a little more acceptable to attend college in the past few years, but it’s still frowned upon. I think it’s important to keep the members from doing too well for themselves, because you need to have a group of people who are constantly looking for something better. They need to be waiting for Armageddon, praying that God will solve all their woes, and actively knocking on people’s doors on a Saturday afternoon telling them that the world is about to end. You’re just not going to find that kind of commitment from hedge fund analysts and successful plastic surgeons. Those people have yachts to use!<\/p>\n

4.) At the end of the book, you transition from an unemployed, stay-at-home wife to a divorced slam poet. Currently, you perform stand-up comedy. How did you choose to go into these professions? Did your work in poetry or comedy serve to motivate your memoir-writing?<\/em><\/p>\n

First, I don’t want to put too much emphasis on my performing standup, because that’s really unfair to hardworking comics who are out there honing their craft and dealing with drunken hecklers night after night. I love standup, but it’s been a while since I’ve done it regularly. I took a hiatus to concentrate on writing the book. So I’m really more of a writer than a comic at this point. But I love performing and slam poetry and standup were just two outlets for that. I’ve also done a lot of sketch comedy.<\/p>\n

I think standup definitely helped in the writing process, because after you bomb enough times, you get better at determining when a joke needs to be thrown out before you waste your time saying it out loud. Standup forces you to hone this skill because awkward silence is, well, awkward. Writers tend to be vague and wordy because they have that luxury. They don’t have to sit and watch someone read their book and wait for them to laugh. But if they did, I think you’d find a lot more jokes and a lot less flowery, meandering descriptions of childhood pets.<\/p>\n

5.) Given that Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses aren’t allowed to speak to disfellowshipped ex-Jehovah Witnesses, how have your Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness family and friends reacted to this book? Are you still in contact with any of the book’s characters?<\/em><\/p>\n

No one who is still a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness has contacted me. They’re not supposed to, because I’m an evil apostate. However, I have recently reconnected with a couple of people from the book who are no longer Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that’s been amazing. They seem happy, and therefore, I’m happy for them!<\/p>\n

6.) What current writing projects are you working on?<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m doing research on what will hopefully be a second book, I’m writing a screenplay with a friend of mine, and I’m putting together a one-woman show based on the book. And, of course, I am training for the 2010 winter Olympics as part of my quest to regain my gold medal in Alpine Memoiring!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allison McCarthy is back with this month’s author interview featuring Kyria Abrahams, who recently published I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Perfect, You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witness Upbringing. Allison is a freelance writer based in Maryland and a recent graduate of Goucher College. Her work has been published in The Baltimore Review, ColorsNW, Girlistic, JMWW, Scribble, Dark Sky, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1905,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[313],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-interviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1905"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}