Patricia Motto’s new memoir To the Men I’ve Loved is the latest release from Eckhartz Press.
The course of true love may never run smooth, but seldom has it hit quite as many bumps, potholes and land mines as it does in Patricia Motto’s journey to find the meaning of that all important four letter word.
Love.
Beginning with the beautiful eyes of a kindergarten boy at nap time and continuing to the man for whom she did not get off the plane, there are stops along the way for, among others, a first kiss boyfriend, the American League’s Most Valuable Player and a twice convicted armed robber.
Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, the trip is never dull.
We recently got a chance to chat with Pat about her book. This will give you an idea of what to expect when you read her provocative, funny, and heartwarming memoir.
EP: You’ve written plays before, but this is your first book. What inspired you to write this as a book?
Pat: Actually, I’ve dealt with two of the chapters in this book as plays already. My first full length play is called “Between Games.” It’s about a naive white girl who spends the summer working with a baseball team and becomes involved with a troubled Black superstar. No surprise what that one’s based on. I’ve also written a play set during the Vietnam era about a college girl who spends her summers at the USO. I love them and I loved writing them but I’ve never been able to get a production of either one.
Plays require the stars to align. There are just a lot of moving parts that have to come together to bring it to life. With a book, it’s just the writer and the computer screen and then finding that one person who believes in it in enough to bring it to an audience. (Thank you Eckhartz Press)
There’s another element that favors the memoir form. You can and should be emotionally honest in a play, just as you are in a memoir, but you can’t be completely factually honest. A play’s audience requires at least some semblance of a resolution. And real life isn’t like that. Real life usually hands you a fist full of loose ends.
EP: In many ways it’s a book about its time. The 60s, the 70s, the changing of society’s mores. Did writing about that time from a current day perspective make you reassess how you viewed it at the time?
Pat: In the book I think I write something like, when you’re in the vortex of crazy you can’t see the crazy. Several times in the book I stop and ask, who am I now? I’m still asking that. I’ve been through many iterations of that girl since then and with each one the past looks just a little different. Maybe it’s perspective. Maybe it’s even wisdom. In any event, I’m hoping to continue the process.
EP: You tackle some pretty heavy topics including interracial dating, extra-marital affairs, and probably the most controversial topic in America these days, especially since the Dobbs decision, abortion. How hard was it to write about those very personal things?
Pat: Parts of it are fun and easy. Like going on You Tube and watching Spin and Marty to see why I was gaga over Spin. But some of it is also a little like poking at a sore tooth. “Does it still hurt? Ok, now does it still hurt?”
For me, the hardest part about writing about such personal things is the fact that it actually isn’t all about me. There are other people who are cast in roles they never auditioned for. That’s a big responsibility and I struggled with it during the whole process.
Including the chapter about my abortion was the most difficult decision. I had it in some drafts and took it out of others. I think that having had an abortion must be a little bit like being gay. You aren’t ashamed. You aren’t embarrassed. But you know that there is a whole group of people who just are not going to look at you the same once they know. But after Dobbs…… well, I just thought screw it. It’s in.
EP: You’re going to get a lot of questions about the famous person in your book, former White Sox slugger Dick Allen. In retrospect, how do you look at your relationship with him?
Pat: The fact that I am right now sitting here struggling to answer this question should tell you that I have still not completely come to terms with that relationship. I knew how I felt about him. I have never been completely sure how he felt about me.
When Dick’s book Crash came out in the late 1980’s I decided to go to his book signing. By that time it had been more than ten years since I’d seen him. I just wanted to know if he even remembered me. I put the book in front of him and said, “Buster if you don’t know how to inscribe this book you are in big trouble.” He looked up and there was that smile and he said, “Pat, did you really think I’d forget you?” He asked me to stay until he was done so we could get together. But that wasn’t going to happen.
I do not want to exploit my relationship with Dick. He is one chapter in the book because he was important in my life. Celebrity was an inescapable part of his life and it heavily influenced who he was and who we were together. But my relationship was with the person, not the image.
EP: The most important man in your life, your late husband, isn’t really in this book at all. What made you decide to exclude him?
Pat: Well first of all the book is already more than 180 pages and I was with my husband for 36 years after it ends and I thought it might be good if people could actually lift the book to read it.
I have toyed with the idea of continuing the memoir and actually wrote an opening paragraph of the next book. But despite some really tough times (including two different year long separations) it was a pretty darn good happy marriage. And I’m just not sure people want to read about that.
EP: What do you want people to take away from this book?
Pat: I think I simply want the reader to feel like they just spent some time with a friend. I want them to think, “Well, if she could put her screwed up life out there, I guess I shouldn’t be embarrassed or concerned about sharing mine.” Because I believe we’re all here to hear each others stories.
To the Men I Loved is available right now, right here at Eckhartz Press.
I kept hearing the voice of Judy Blume’s Margaret as I began to read To the Men I’ve Loved. Magaret goes to college would be a more appropriate comparison. Pat’s voice is honest and questioning, like Magaret’s. Of course that religious background is a common element. I met Pat in recent years. After reading her memoir I am amazed at what she’s gone through. She has her act together with a self-chosen direction, not one directed by men. I am impressed by what she has come through. She injects her humor right when I needed to know she was doing ok. The time period Pat travels through is one to which I can relate. She shares intimate details that helped me understand what she went through and to not be so hard on myself for decisions I made about men. I looked forward to picking her book up each night to see what happens next. There were so many twists and turns and yet I knew it was going to have a good ending because I know Pat now. I look forward to her next story – her marriage?
Thank you Pat!