Dave Pelzer is a Survivor

Posted on June 28, 2008

The Guardian interviews Dave Pelzer, who is widely credited for inventing the genre of "misery lit": books which chronicle a horrific childhood or life experience. His heartbreaking memoir of his childhood (A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive) really set the stage for the flood of books to follow. But Pelzer is actually a pretty upbeat guy,

A Child Called It was a horrific tale of sadistic abuse at the hands of his alcoholic mother, who kept him locked in the family basement, force-fed him dog faeces and ammonia, and stabbed and burned him. A sequel recounted his childhood in foster care after police and teachers rescued him at 12, quickly followed by a third volume charting his journey through the US air force to become a juvenile counsellor, bestselling author, motivational speaker and living legend of the daytime Oprah circuit. His books have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a decade, breaking every record since the list began.
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Pelzer believes people like his books because they put their own problems in perspective. "A Child Called It was a story about resilience, it was never about boo hoo hoo, it was about a kid that didn't quit. I never sat down and thought: I'll do it to commercialise it, or for morbid fascination. I did not know until I came to England, on a book tour in the late 90s, that there was this thing about a morbid fascination. That's when I was accused of it, of being a morbid writer. That had never happened in America."
How does he feel about the criticism that misery literature feeds a voyeuristic taste for cruelty? "I can't help what other people may think." But he must have an opinion, surely. "You know, that's not my job, ma'am. My job's to do a good job. That's my opinion."

Dave says he was extremely surprised that his memoir became such a bestseller in England: it sold four million copies there. But he's moved on from misery lit: he now writes self-help and motivational books. Dave's new book is Moving Forward: Taking the Lead in Your Life.