Sarah Hepola has been a sex blogger, travel columnist, music editor, film critic, an editor at Salon.com, and her spot-on essays on culture show remarkable insightful and keen skills of observation. She has a quick, wry wit. She will make you laugh.
And she’s awakened in a stranger’s bed with no memory of how she got there.
In her raw, revealing memoir “Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget,” Hepola, 41, shares stories of sneaking sips of beer when she was 7, blacking out for the first time at 11, going to happy hour at 6 p.m. and closing the bar, and finding her way out of her boozy binges and blackouts and living her first year of sobriety.
(Unlike passing out, during a blackout a person talks, walks and functions but has no memory of his or her actions.)
We asked Hepola, who presents at 2:30 p.m. next Sunday, March 13, in the Star pavilion, a few questions:
You’ve said “Blackout” was “the book you needed.” Tell us why it is/was the book you needed and others may need.
“I thought my life was over after I quit drinking.
“That’s part of why it took me so long to stop. I worried that sobriety would be a permanent social exile from good times and joy and erotic adventure.
“It wasn’t true. I would even say the opposite has been true: Sex is better when you’re not bombed out of your mind, conversation crackles more when you’re not slurring your words, and friendships get stronger when you’re truly present for each other, not when you disappear into your drink.
“So I wanted to write a book that could assure the former me I’d be all right on the other side. I think of the book as a message in a bottle back to my former self: This way out. I promise you’ll be OK.”
You read the audiobook. What was it like reading your memoir, sharing your story aloud?
“It was intense. Months had passed since I last read the story, and I was worried that with some distance, I would see all the mistakes, or feel embarrassed by the material, but I kept thinking: Yeah, that’s right. That’s how it happened.
“This may sound like a curious response, but as a memoir writer, I live with an outsized terror that I will get the story wrong, so it was a huge relief just to feel comfortable inside those pages again.
“Of course some passages were tough to read, but they’re not the ones people imagine. They’re passages about my cat, or my mom, or my best friend. Passages about unconditional love. I had claw marks on my left palm from trying to keep my voice from breaking during those sections.”
And it is brave. How have the reactions from family and friends affected you? Have you had to restructure your life and rebuild friendships?
“I think it says a lot about my parents that never once did they say, ‘You can’t write this,’ or ‘Please don’t say such-and-such.’ My parents were so generous with me. They always said, ‘Write the truth. Write the best book you know how to write.’
“I did have to rebuild relationships with friends, but not because of the book.
“Because of the years I spent drinking, and not taking care of myself, and being stuck in my own drama.
“As far as the memoir goes, my friends were super-supportive. I always show pages to friends during the editing process, so they each had a chance to torpedo anything they didn’t like, but no one exercised that option.
“Obviously, the book forced some hard conversations. It got squirmy at times. But every one of those hard conversations led to a stronger relationship.”
What can audience members expect from your presentation?
“Lasers. Glitter. Dancing cats. Well, metaphorically speaking.
“I’ll read a few passages from the book and talk about how I discovered alcohol, and then how I discovered I had to let it go.
“I want to talk about losing your way. That’s something that happens to all of us at some point. For me, it happened with alcohol, and for you it might be brought on by something else — a marriage, a job, a family member — but you have to walk away from something you love in order to get yourself back.”
—Sarah Hepola will speak at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday
