Slippery characters
Helena de Bres on How to Be Multiple, memoir & philosophy
I first encountered the writings of memoirist and philosophy professor Helena de Bres during a tortured evening spent pondering my own philosophy degree over digital back issues of The Point. Helena’s series on the meaning of life — with its all-to-relatable tale of falling in and out of love with academic philosophy — pulled me right in.
Years later, I have the pleasure of interviewing her about her curious and rigorous (and frequently hilarious) memoir of twinhood, How to Be Multiple, as well as a host of other things:
Why philosophers need to write personal essays (more on that right here)
Whether the self is a continuous thing — and what we owe each other if it is.
What the novelist owes her reader versus the memoirist.
The Lips & Chips annual lip sync contest, held entirely within the de Bres family home in New Zealand.
Take a listen below, and if you like what you hear, I hope you’ll grab Helena’s books from the Cosmic Cheeto Bookshop:
Artful Truths (read a fabulous craft talk on this one by friend of the ‘stack & podcast interviewee Jeannie Vanasco!)
She also wrote one of my all-time fave pieces in McSweeney's: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/writing-advice-to-my-students-that-would-also-have-been-good-sex-advice-for-my-high-school-boyfriends