Deborah Derrickson Kossmann’s memoir, Lost Found Kept, will be released in print and e-book form on January 5, and celebrated at our YouTube release reading on January 12. In the memoir, Kossmann, a psychologist, is forced to come to terms with the fact that her intelligent, sensitive, and book-loving mother has created "the worst hoarder house ever seen." After making the horrifying discovery that her mother had no water in her house for at least two years, she begins the otherworldly excavation of a childhood home she hasn't been inside for three decades.
Moving back and forth in time, from this surreal nightmare of an archaeological dig to recollecting her past and long buried family secrets, Kossmann seeks to untangle a web of complicated familial relationships. In her lyrical and unflinching quest, she comes to understand what's been lost, what's been found and what's been kept in both her own and her mother's life.
Trio House Press’ executive editor, Kris Bigalk, posed some questions to Deb about the book and the experience of writing about hoarding, a much misunderstood topic.
KB: During the course of publishing this memoir, you and I talked a bit about hoarding, and how it has been sensationalized and stigmatized by television shows and popular culture. What perspective on hoarding does Lost Found Kept provide for readers?
DDK: I appreciated the sensitivity that you and everyone at Trio House Press displayed about this topic. In America it’s estimated that one in fifty people are hoarders (with various levels of this). That means there are many family members, including children of hoarders, who are struggling with what to do in these situations, like my sister and I did. I’ve been struck with how much pain is expressed in forums on social media about hoarding from people struggling with their own behaviors or what is happening with their loved ones. Because there is so much shame and stigma around the topic, there are very few books, particularly memoirs, that discuss it. All good memoir touches on universal themes and experiences, despite whatever individual traumas it describes. I hope readers will have compassion for the difficulties of having a mentally ill family member and for the flawed and human ways we coped with our situation. I hope they understand their own struggles differently as a result.
KB: Other themes in Lost Found Kept include negotiating mother/child relationships as adults, facing buried family secrets, and coming to terms with aging. How do you think the experiences you relate in Lost Found Kept changed you?
DDK: In the book I write, “If finding meaning and understanding isn’t the goal of what I’m doing than what is the reason I’m here? I could just hire somebody to shovel all of this into a dumpster.” I was fundamentally changed by the cleanout, negatively because of the amount of trauma involved, but in a positive way because the secret of my mother’s illness was visible to everyone in a way that it hadn’t been before. My mother functioned very well in many aspects of her life for a long time, so it was hard for other people, even her few close friends, to understand the depth of her mental illness. All my life I felt very alone with that. Realizing how this dynamic shaped me growing up was freeing. I was still taking care of her as I rescued her from the Hoarding House, but I was able to give myself validation for how complicated it had been to do this caregiving all along, even when I tried to escape it.
KB: One of the delightful aspects of Lost Found Kept is the groundedness and humor that permeates the narrative. What role do you think humor has in the memoir?
DDK: My husband and I joke that humor is our love language. It’s a cliché to say that laughter is curative, but I really believe if you can’t appreciate the absurdity of things that happen in life, you aren’t going to survive. I think it’s a kind of bravery. Humor provides some distance from pain but also enables you to access joy and a sense of play. One scene that didn’t make it into the book took place when my father was dying. My half-brother and I stayed together near our dad’s nursing home and really got to know each other more as we dealt with everything (we hadn’t grown up together). He introduced me to John Mulaney’s What’s New Pussycat routine which I had never heard. He started to play it on his phone while we sat on the couch, exhausted and unable to sleep, each of us with a drink, after spending long hours with our very sick father knowing his death was coming soon. After a minute or so, we couldn’t stop howling. I think it’s the same for a reader of my memoir, humor helps keep the story in perspective. If we can laugh, we are still alive and connected to each other. It may be messy, but we can get through it!
KB: Thanks so much, Deb! We’re looking forward to your release reading and conversation with editor David Groff on Sunday, January 12, at 5 pm Eastern on YouTube Live!
