A CONVERSATION WITH SETH GREENLAND,

AUTHOR OF A KINGDOM OF TENDER COLORS

What is A Kingdom of Tender Colors about?

It’s about struggling against dire odds, triumph etched with lingering anxiety, and jokes. In 1993, when my daughter was two years old and my wife was pregnant with our second child, I found out that I had Stage 4 lymphoma. There had been no symptoms, so it hit me like a lightning bolt. The prognosis was not encouraging and I had to consider the possibility that I might not survive. Over the the next year, I underwent a course of chemotherapy that destroyed my immune system which led to a near-death experience, and when the traditional protocol ended, I explored a series of rigorous alternative treatments that included Tai Chi, Chinese herbs, shark cartilage, countless vitamins and enzymes, a radical shift in diet, and coffee enemas, all of which my oncologist thought were insane. My mother had just died and my father began a romance with a Brazilian woman half his age. I was a young comedy writer during this time, so the book has way more laughs than the typical memoir. And there’s a happy ending. 

Who is the intended audience for this memoir?

This is a book for anyone interested in a story about a young writer who is faced with a life-threatening challenge and how he stumbles toward a tentative enlightenment as he tries to survive. It’s for anyone who is looking to beat long odds and needs some inspiration along the way. It’s for anyone who appreciates the degree to which humor helps us survive.

You’ve published five novels. Why did you decide to write a memoir?

When I was diagnosed, I bought every book I could find about surviving cancer and I hated all of them. It was a guilty feeling hating these books because they are so well-meaning and I’m sure the authors are lovely people who are nice to their families, give generously to charity, and have a song in their hearts. Or not. Who cares? They were just so earnest. There was nothing that was insightful, empathic, and entertaining to help me to cope with this horrifying new reality, nothing to give hope that didn’t feel like recycled bromides. Where was the first-person account, written in a loose, amusing yet informative style by someone who had been through this terrifying experience and (big caveat) lived to write about it? I vowed to write that book if I lived. This is that book.

There is so much going on in the world. Why should someone read A Kingdom of Tender Colors now?

The pandemic has brought everyone’s life into sharper focus, forcing us to examine what is important to each of us as individuals. And because of all of this chaos, it has made some people consider how life ends far more forthrightly than they normally would. The book is, among other things, an extended meditation on the theme of mortality. When I was diagnosed, I was thirty-seven years old. I had no idea whether I would live to see my fortieth birthday. The situation in which I found myself made me think about the totality of my life in a manner that was clarifying and led me to make several changes in how I was living. In a way, the whole world has cancer now, metaphorically speaking. Anyone that is paying attention is framing their life in a different way than they did before the pandemic. In that sense, the story I tell is a bulletin from the front.

You were a comedy writer. Can you be funny when you’re writing about cancer?

Absolutely! There is comedy to be found in the darkest of subjects and dealing with cancer is fertile ground. My sense of humor was one of the things that allowed me to endure the experience and I foreground that in the book. To be clear, A Kingdom of Tender Colors is hardly a firehose of jokes, but it is deeply infused with the humor I try to bring to everyday life. And I do manage to tell a few actual jokes, because I love them.

You started writing this book in 2008. Why did it take so long to complete?

When I wrote the first version of the book, I had no idea how to write a memoir. What I came up with was more of an autobiography, a linear telling of a series of events. The book was fine as far as it went, but ultimately it didn’t work as well as I had hoped. So I schooled myself in the art of the memoir, read a ton of them, and tried to figure out what made the best ones work. I also had to learn the idea of “I,” in other words, who was the “I” to which these things were happening. In the earlier drafts, I did not dig as deeply as I was able to subsequently, for reasons that I go into in the book. I revealed more and more of myself as I kept writing, something I hope makes for a deeper reading experience. And finally, there was the problem of time. From what period of my life was I going to tell this story? Should I tell the primary narrative in the present tense? Is the whole thing told from the perspective of the age I am now? When I started writing, the main events I write about had happened about fifteen years earlier. Now they’re twenty-five years in the past. The “I” who is recounting the events is different in every time period. When I was able to reconcile all of that, I was finally able to get the book to work.

What did you learn about yourself while writing this book?

I learned what a challenge is it to be honest on the page when the subject is yourself. But I also learned that this kind of honesty leads to the most genuine and satisfying results, because ultimately that is what a reader will connect with.

Where does the title come from and what does it mean to you?

The title comes from a short story by Chekhov called “The Black Monk,” translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I thought “a kingdom of tender colors” was a remarkably evocative phrase and a resonant way to express what life looked like to someone who might be in danger of losing his and so desperately did not want that to happen.

What advice would you give to someone writing a memoir?

Every memoir is different and not only because each is about a different life; as far as I can tell there are no rules, per se. But here are a few things I learned: fear and shame are not helpful, so banish them. Writing a memoir requires honesty above all because if you’re bullshitting, you’re cheating the reader who, I promise you, has better things to do with her time than read half-truths. So be real, to the best of your abilities. Develop a strategy for how you’re going to deal with the time frame of the story. From what perspective are you telling it? And finally, don’t worry about rendering every detail exactly as it happened. A memoir is a writer’s impression of the events depicted. She remembers only what she remembers. In recounting dialogue that occurred decades earlier, for example, the gist can be acceptable. Memoir is not autobiography.

What was it like to write about living people as opposed to fictional characters?

Writing about fictional characters is harder in that you have to make everything up, but far easier in that they can’t tell you what they think of what you wrote about them. Writing should be an act of empathy, so I would advise potential writers of memoir not to think or their work through the lens of settling scores. Try to grant all characters their subjectivity, and the one to be hardest on is the author. But, most important, tell the truth as you remember it.

You mentioned that you read a lot of memoirs to prepare for writing this book. Which were some of your favorites?

I read so many good ones, but my favorites were “The Odd Woman and the City,” by Vivian Gornick, “The Fire Next Time,” by James Baldwin, “The Foreskin’s Lament,” by Shalom Auslander, and “The World of Yesterday,” by Stefan Zweig, all of which are superb. I would also recommend “Just Kids,” by Patti Smith but you’ve probably already read it.

In 50 words or less, convince me to read this book.

In a time of great chaos, distress, and uncertainty the story told in “A Kingdom of Tender Colors” will inspire you to not give in to the darkness. And it will make you laugh. I hope.