Sarah Polley

Some years ago, as an undergraduate in English literature I was taught to question the authority of a narrator in the novels we read.

The great pursuit of understanding who the narrator is and why they tell their stories from their vantage point helps to counterbalance the natural human tendency to warp reality to suit our purposes.

For me this search begins with Cervantes’ magnum opus Don Quixote, and the somewhat lesser famous Moll Flanders by 18th century novelist Daniel Dafoe.

We weren’t applying this critical reasoning to non-fiction, but I was reminded of this pursuit reading two excellent and quite thought-provoking memoirs, the first Open: An Autobiography by tennis great Andre Agassi and more recently Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory by actor and film director Canadian Sarah Polley.

Agassi tells the story of a boy who despite hating tennis is dragooned into a punishing routine of hours upon hours of returning tennis balls fired at him by a tennis “dragon” by a father who is obsessed by the vision of his son becoming not just any tennis professional, but the best in the world.

Polley tells of the encouragement she received as a child by her parents to take a major role in a TV series based on the writings of Lucy Maude Montgomery with only a measured regard for the child’s safety or personal development.

Sarah obviously had a talent in front of the camera and her family stood to benefit financially. She was told the money would go toward her university education. Her family enjoyed expensive vacations together.

Was it worth it?

Well, Sarah’s mother died early in young Sarah’s acting career from cancer. Her father suffered debilitating grief from the loss of his wife. Sarah herself never got the university education she was promised in spite of being an enterprising reader. Her TV directors and handlers left her frequently in harms way of special effects, a stalker, long working hours, months away from her friends, and in a kind of Twilight Zone of parental love and parental neglect.

And two-thirds through the book the author now in her 40’s tells us she’s been in therapy for 20 years.

It’s about this time I put on my critical hat and ask myself about the author’s sanity given all the injuries she’s suffered, the lunatics in showbiz she has been subject to, the dangerous surgeries she’s undertaken to correct scoliosis — a spine deformity she had as a child — painful endometriosis, a dangerous placenta previa pregnancy, an unlucky concussion from a falling fire extinguisher, an equally unlucky sexual misadventure with now-disgraced radio personality Jian Gomeshi, the complications arising from the delivery of a premature child, and a mind-bending bout of stage fright at the Stratford Festival.

Child exploitation comes in many forms. Andre Agassi experienced one form. Sarah Polley experienced another. And we on the outside only see the benefits of celebrity. A lot of parents never see their children succeed so spectacularly, but at what price?

I listened to Polley’s memoir as an audiobook performed by the author herself. She’s a talented performer and she can be very funny. I highly recommend the audio version of this work.

But I myself worked in the theatre as a teenager and I can tell you there’s no way to exaggerate some of the crazies you meet in that business.… (mais)