Being Selfish by Sarah Marshank, Selfistry.me, 2015, 978-1-68222-814-2, 350 pgs., $17.89.
By Eva Trieger
SOLANA BEACH, California — To paraphrase, some things are better left unwritten. I’m not saying that an author doesn’t have the right to speak her piece and put it out there for the market to purchase, however, I can’t imagine throngs lining up for a book signing for Sarah Marshank‘s memoir Being Selfish.
I love a good book of self-discovery and the journey of unveiling who one is and what she wants from life. Just as I enjoyed the first third of Eat, Pray, Love, I also found Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir frustrating and very self-indulgent. The constant self-examination and greater jihad, if you will, becomes tedious. How much navel gazing can one do before the audience grows weary?
Marshank describes, multiple times, in vivid detail, her sexual exploration, the collage of characters in her head, and her difficulty maturing and separating from her nuclear family. Her sojourn takes her down sometimes unsavory paths, while she attempts to convince herself and her readers that she is on a mission, much like a sociologist who is researching an indigenous culture for an ethnographic paper. Sadly, the trip doesn’t lead to any satisfactory conclusion. This woman continues to struggle and fall down, and alienate this reader. In a few passages I felt sorry for Marshank. I cannot say I understood her pain because it felt so self-imposed. However, I think her memoir is honest. I believe that the author experienced the emotions and traumas that she reveals, but I’m not convinced it is a journey that will make others want to tag along. It is too personal, too intimate to be shared, not unlike finding someone’s diary and reading it aloud to an auditorium of straight laced, celibate monks.
I’m not entirely sure what triggered her apostasy of family, religion and friends, but this rejection is what led the author to create Selfistry, an “integration of Eastern and Western philosophy with meditative and somatic practices. “ Currently Marshank teaches online courses and speaks internationally to assist others in their journey to authenticity.
Writing the memoir may have been cathartic for Sarah Marshank, and while I don’t consider myself a prude, in many places, I felt that her focus on sexuality and intercourse was “TMI” and redundant. Perhaps I would be a kinder critic if her path was completed in fewer than 350 pages. I applaud those who seek the truth and wish to live authentically, but in the end, I’m not convinced that the author discovered her “center,” or merely matured to accept herself and all of her relationships with love and peace. Being Selfish may have been more aptly titled, “Being Self-Absorbed,” for that is the parting sense I got from Marshank’s tome.
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Trieger is a freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eva.trieger@sdjewishworld.com. Comments intended for publication in the space below must be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and by his/ her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the U.S.)