My Untold Story

My sister is not a chimpanzee.

In order to write the novel I want to write, everyone in my family and several of my good friends would need to be dead. Since that is not likely to occur unless there is a nuclear holocaust, in which case there would be few readers left and thus no advance from any publishers, it seems pointless.

A good friend of mine, who would definitely have to be one of the dead because her chapter is quite juicy, recently suggested I read a certain novel. I found a review of it online and learned that the plot revolves around two sisters, one of whom, owing to some government science experiment, was a chimpanzee. (I just skimmed it.) It sounded zany, in that good way reviewers intend, and quirky and eccentric, and anyway she got it published.

If were to write about my sister who is not a chimpanzee but nevertheless equally bizarre and vastly different from me, it would hurt her feelings. I couldn't do that. And if I were to divulge secrets about anyone else, like my husband and his family and even my own son, they would all shriek in horror at my depictions, revelations, disclosures and imaginings, fictionalized though they may be, despite the fact that my husband swears he would not care if I told the world about how it all boils down to his penis and that all men feel the same way.

So I am stuck with a fabulous novel buried deep inside me unless my entire family packs into a van that careens off the side of a mountain in a mudslide in Costa Rica and are all killed. Of course, if that terrible thing happened, I would probably write about that instead, and so my story wouldn't see the light of day anyway. Too bad, because it's a doozy.