Another ghost writing session with my client who has sustained brain injuries in a car crash. This time we attempt to return to memories from his young school days - or what fragments remain from this time. A surprising amount of detail surfaces: he recalls that he was naughty in primary school (weren't we all!) and that as a young adult he liked Depeche Mode.
My issue is how to write this. How much detail do I add, to shape his fragmented material into acceptable memoir which the reader can picture? Or should I leave his hesitant, sometimes repetitive/disrupted narrative voice to speak for itself? As our session comes to a close, he says:
'It's hard to explain. The car crash has made me... Deep down I wish
I was a different person; I wish it had happened to somebody else. But it was ME
and that makes me want to scream out loud but I don't; I don't want to do that
This cake is nice this cake I've just eaten it was beautiful a beautiful cake. It was nice.
I want someone to see me for who I am. I'm not a bad person. It's just hard.'
His words bring my heart into my throat; seems to me they are fantastic at just speaking for themselves.
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