Emma Forrest, 2023
I’m on a bit of an Emma Forrest kick, having recently read her first memoir Your Voice In My Head. She has a very unique writing style, and each chapter of both memoirs reads a little like puzzle. She allows her reader to piece together how different experiences she shares informs her perspective, and I love that she trusts me enough to figure it out. Even better, it all fits perfectly. It’s a great lesson in writing, too.
Busy Being Free is Forrest’s memoir about her four years of being celibate, which coincided with her divorce from actor Ben Mendelsohn and the presidency of Donald Trump. She explains that needing to look at Trump’s face on the news and live in the aftermath of that election was as good a time as any to stop feeling attractive/being attractive to men, and I have to agree with her. But in that time she unravels decades of truth from her experience as an object for men. She explains how she objectified herself, and mistakenly believed she could achieve all that she wanted through the osmosis of being with men she admired or feared. This of course is something I think many of us can relate to doing, even if in retrospect. Living in a patriarchal society makes this line of thinking almost automatic, and overcoming it requires the kind of excavation Forrest writes about in her book.
A presidential term can end quickly and decisively, just like it did in real life. Were those long years really a thirty-second dream? We waited so long for a Republican to say of Trump: ‘Here is the line he has crossed — we are done with him.’ But they never did. But there, you see, my underwear was on the floor: This crosses a line.
Emma Forrest, Busy Being Free, on ending her celibacy.
As with any good memoir, there is so much to be learned from Forrest’s experiences. While I cannot always relate (living in a massive cliffside home outside LA, for example), the wisdom she takes from her life and shares in the book is remarkable and incredibly useful.
The most memorable example: There was a very fancy party with a very fancy cake, which her young daughter was so excited about she declined to eat anything until the cake was served. But, the cake was no good and her daughter was devastated. Using this brief experience, Forrest discusses all the ways women pin their hopes and dreams on a thing or experience or relationship that can “fix” everything, without even realizing it — and how upsetting it is when we learn it can’t be true.
Through her celibacy Forrest learns to rely on herself for everything, and finds liberation. While it might not be the route we all take achieve this goal, it is one worth chasing, for sure. Four stars.
Monica Cardenas 