The fictions of book dedications

Because I plan on writing a book dedication page one day, I’m always dissecting others’. I’m always wondering if people are lying or not — does everyone have amazing, encouraging parents?

You know, when I started writing my dad sat me down and told me I should think about making a living. We had a 1-hour talk where he deconstructed me emotionally. People drifted past to listen but no one interfered.

Can I get one of those Pauls, please?

If books are all about truth and honesty, the dedication page seems like an exception. I think most of them are lies. I’m probably wrong, but I have no way of knowing that. Sometimes you get some nice dedications that are like

I believe those.

But then others are all

With those, I read between the lines. Notice they didn’t say “who encouraged me so much in writing this book.” Instead it’s probably just a reference to being born. It’s an existential statement.

When I write a book, do I really want to make a statement about an existential fact in the one dedication page I get? It seems baffling that anyone would want to do that, but then again, some people spend 4 days with family over Christmas. In the same house, no hotel. People do all kinds of weird shit when it comes to family.

Great. A poetic way of dedicating the book to your readers. Which is the most pure form of book dedication, I think.

This is from the book I was reading last night:

See, my mom always had rules about what books I could and couldn’t read. Not just the standard “no sex or language”; she even had a rule about how I had to read one non-fiction book for every fiction book, and she would check.

Book dedications suck for those of us who are missing something. Like abstaining from social media, maybe I should stop reading them for mental health reasons. They’re needle pricks of all the ways I haven’t been helped.

—

In honor of telling the truth, and in honor of this being a time capsule I’ll look back on one day, let me tell you what I’d put in my book dedication if I had to write it right now. If I weren’t concerned about looking cheesy and I knew no one would judge it.

To me.

It’s the truest thing at the moment. Maybe every writer feels that way; maybe the dedication page is meant to be a selfless moment that comes before pages of self-involvement. But I always interpreted the dedication page as a peek at the process, and right now that is my process. It’s an empty room, a single table, no internet, and me.

I used to have more encouragement than I do now. I still have some friends that are generous and amazing, but I have to actively ask for it. I don’t have cheerleaders. I used to.

And you know, maybe that’s just what life is. Maybe this is your 30s. Maybe it will always be this way. Maybe I’m fooling myself with this future-fantasy of a group of people who are actively interested in my prose; a trick, a story I tell myself to keep going during the hard times, like the promise of heaven after a life of trials. The dream that I’m building something.

Maybe it’s better that I not have any of these people. The people who used to encourage me, who have since left my life, sometimes they haunt me. One of them was haunting me last night. I was having an especially hard time with the words and the voice said, “I was only pretending to be interested in your stories because you need your ego stroked, and it was an easy trade-off to get your attention.”

Maybe I’m broken and can’t trust encouragement anyway, so why should I hope for it? My childhood wore me down. I look at everything with suspicion. Kindness is just as likely to make me angry.

I know I’m a good writer. But I don’t know why.

I like these book dedications, which I saw while researching this. They didn’t fit the narrative but they’re nice.

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