A conversation with Tara Sidhoo Fraser
Vancouver-based Tara Sidhoo Fraser made her writing debut in 2023 with When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery, and Transformation (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023). Launching her career with a memoir proved no easy feat: “Rehashing the past? There were definitely difficult chapters,” Sidhoo Fraser recalls drily.
When Sidhoo Fraser was 32, she suffered a stroke caused by a rare mutation called an arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Coming out of surgery, she suffered from amnesia: in effect, she was a new person who had to fight to piece together the life that she had. She calls her pre-amnesia self “Ghost”–explaining the book’s title. Ghost is introduced to readers in the first chapter “the memory box.” The challenge? Ghost is an unreliable narrator of memories. So while Tara looks at photographs and converses with Ghost to recall forgotten memories, she also turns to people like her Mama, who tells her that she is remembering inaccurately. This experience–of thinking she remembers a memory correctly, only to discover it is not really what happened–is grueling.
Sidhoo Fraser conveys her journey in a powerful way that resonates with readers, most of whom will have never experienced amnesia. She does this by focusing on the senses: “Connecting them together, I think that . . . shows maybe that’s how people are able to see it”, she explains. For example, in chapter four, Sidhoo Fraser recalls seeing the ocean. Logically, she knows that people get wet in the water. “But I didn’t know the feeling of being in the water, what the water tastes like. Those things we just have like the luxury of taking for granted, and had just kind of disappeared”.
In effect, Sidhoo Fraser must experience – as if for the first time – any number of things that she has forgotten about. “So when I, for example, smell lavender, there’s so many emotional connects to that smell. Same with taste, same with touch. And these are like subconscious images, and connections to things that flow through your mind.” But in her case, “when you don’t have anything, it’s just very strange.”
Sidhoo Fraser’s strange and unique experience leads directly to the advice she offers to budding writers. If you are struggling to come up with an idea of what to write, Sidhoo Fraser suggests simply, “write the story you need to write. And then in writing that story, write a story you want to read that’s not on your bookshelf.” Those twin objectives will give “you the drive, the desire and the hunger, and contribute to that wild obsession” you need “when writing a book or memoir”.
That obsession sustained Sidhoo Fraser during the process of writing When my Ghost Sings, when she struggled with ups and downs: “That just happens with everybody in art. But you just do it because you have to. You don’t know what’s going to happen with it. You don’t know if it’ll actually be on your bookshelf, or if it will be just for you. But you have to write it. It has to call you, and then you have to devote yourself to it.”
The most difficult aspect of writing her memoir by far was trying to piece together her memories. “Writing about the hospital, and things surrounding when I was in the hospital, felt painful. But it was painful because it was so blurry.” Ultimately, however, she discovered that “the story is there: in my heart, in my being. I have already experienced it.” Likewise, this is a story of queerness, as well as disability – because that intersectionality is also there: “For anybody writing a memoir, just write from your vulnerable authentic honest place. I don’t feel like I have to explain. It’s not my job to explain that aspect of my life. I am telling a story about my stroke.”
Ultimately, Sidhoo Fraser describes the journey of writing her memoir all the way to completion as “a beautiful and healing journey.” In completing it, Sidhoo Fraser has taken control over the narrative of her stroke. “There is something so powerful about taking a dark happening like that: seeing the light in it, writing it, letting other people read it, and being able to converse about it. I think that’s absolutely beautiful.”
These days, Sidhoo Fraser has moved on to a new and very different challenge: writing fiction. “This feels really lovely, like I am removed. I am not having to go through any sort of turmoil.” She smiles, “It’s a lot gentler, this [writing experience], so I think it’s a very nice break I am taking.” Pressed for details, she demurs, offering only that it is “very dreamy and very queer”.
When My Ghost Sings can be ordered through Arsenal Pulp Press.
© Pritha Tiffany Patwary, SesayArts Magazine, 2024
