Friday morning, I told you about the family drama playing out on Amazon.com as Rachel Sontag‘s father began posting “reviews” attacking his daughter’s memoir, House Rules, along with her reputation. And I wondered, given that Sontag had just done some events in Chicago, whether her parents had driven in from Evanston to heckle her in person. In fact, though, “the Chicago trip went really well,” Sontag emailed me over the weekend:
“The interview show was very relaxed, and some old friends from childhood came out, people I hadn’t connected with in 15-20 years, all with their own memories,” she added. “I was on a panel discussion at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair with three other memoirists. The subject was truth in memoir and it was fantastic. Good questions, a vibrant audience. As well there was a reading at The Bookstall in Winnetka which brought out a lot of teachers, my school counselor (who I’d written about quite a bit in the book) and many old family friends who’ve been estranged over the years.”
And while she has chosen not to respond to her father’s scorched-earth campaign, Sontag says she wasn’t at all surprised to see him lashing out on Amazon. “In fact, it was quite mild compared to his usual, and I was afraid readers wouldn’t be able to identify what I know is a deep and pathological sickness,” she observed. “Many people from the community, who have worked under him for the last twenty years, have contacted me with their own stories. It’s come up several times that House Rules was too generous an exploration of the intentions behind the man.” And his most recent attacks on Sontag’s character have elicited sympathetic responses from more readers, she added, reaffirming her decision to tell her story.