A Different Kind of Character Study

People are fascinating. Why do they do the things they do? I can make up all sorts of motivations and back stories for my fictional characters, but is it believable? Sometimes that’s hard to judge.

Lately, I’ve been reading books outside of my typical fun zone, and accidentally discovered another way to study characters.

Open by Andre Agassi is a sports autobiography. Agassi is a well-known American tennis player who played from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s.

Although I’m not a sports fan, I recognized Agassi’s name. I’ve played a little tennis and occasionally watched bits of major tournaments on TV, like Wimbledon and the French Open.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this book. (It was recommended as a good example within its genre—definitely more autobiography than memoir, for anyone who cares about that distinction.)

I don’t read much memoir, but one thing that captivates me is a compelling voice, an honest voice.

Very early in his book Agassi earned my trust as a reader when he shared something that I found surprising—he hates tennis.

That raised a couple of big story questions for me:

• How the heck did Agassi become such a good tennis player if he hated tennis?

• And why did he stick with it for more than 20 years?

His dislike of tennis was not a secret. Even as a kid he seemed to hate tennis. His dad kept pushing him into it, forcing him to practice and play.

Agassi is very up front about his hatred of tennis in the book. He told a number of people throughout his life—they just didn’t believe him or didn’t care because he was making them so much money.

Of course memoir is all about character and character growth or change, but because I don’t read it very often, I hadn’t thought to read it to study character.

The Community by N. Jamiyla Chisholm is a memoir about when her parents and she, as a very young child, went to live in a restrictive community of Black Muslims in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1970s.

Part of Jamiyla’s story is how she persuaded her mother to explain why she chose to follow her husband into this life. Jamiyla is a journalist and currently the creative content director at Barnard College, which is how I met her and heard about her book.

As a two-and-a-half-year-old child, Jamiyla was separated from her parents and had to live in a room with two dozen other little girls. She was ill-treated by the women looking after her and felt abandoned by her mother.

In researching and crafting her memoir, she wanted to understand, much like the reader does, why her mother stayed—even after she realized it was essentially a cult—and how she finally broke free.

Unearthing real people’s memories and motivations is delicate work. I appreciate the results. It provides more insight into how people can deceive themselves—even at the cost to their loved ones.

Non-fiction gives us a way to study real people and learn more about how they think and act and feel.