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Stage embraces embellishment in new memoir
(by Kara Krekeler - April 15, 2009)
William Stage wants you to know that his memoir isn’t simply a compilation of facts.
In the introduction to Fool For Life, Stage writes “Everything between the covers of this book is true except for the stuff that isn’t … I am telling you up front, here and now, I am a firm believer in embellishment.”
Certain things are unarguably true: Stage and his main character share a name, a penchant for wearing shorts in all weather, a couple of kids out of wedlock and an unconventional way of paying the bills — delivering court summonses throughout the metro St. Louis area while writing articles for a handful of publications, including Modern Drunkard. But while he argued that his book is certainly a memoir, Stage admitted that he and the “Wm. Stage” between the covers are not necessarily the same person.
“I think the guy in the book isn’t totally me. He wears his socks inside out and I don’t. Or maybe it’s the other way around,” Stage said during a recent interview at the Central West End’s Llewelyn’s Pub, part of the author’s old stomping grounds from when he first moved to St. Louis in the late 1970s.
“I think my character has this indomitable attitude about life’s trials and tribulations. He’s always creating trials and tribulations for himself, but he overcomes them by his attitude toward life: Never let the bastards grind you down.”
The book tells Stage’s life story in a non-linear fashion, bouncing back and forth in time between Stage’s childhood, years in the army during Vietnam and his more recent adventures filling out his complicated family tree. Along the way, readers are introduced to Stage’s obsessive-compulsive adoptive mother, long line of girlfriends and small-time shoplifting habit (including a story about pocketing a hamster, which may or may not be true; Stage said he couldn’t remember if he made up that particular anecdote).
“Without trying to brag or sound vain, I think my life is so remarkable and bizarre that I had to share it,” Stage said.
What he thought was particularly worthy of a story was his search for his birth parents while attempting to start a family later in life. Through a combination of jumping through legal hoops, searching genealogy websites and making calls to his biological parents’ grade school, Stage tracked down his biological mother, several half-siblings and a slew of distant relatives. His father died before Stage managed to find him.
The book details the search and subsequent letters, phone calls and, finally, face-to-face meetings, much of which occurred after Stage decided to write the book. He spent five years writing it, taking a year off in the middle to work on the book Pictures of People.
“The story was unfolding as I wrote it,” Stage said, adding that when he started writing, he had only the core of the story — which was initially published in the Riverfront Times, for which Stage has contributed articles for several years — and no idea how his story would end. “I was complaining to anyone who would listen that I really needed to be done with it.”
When it came down to it, it wasn’t hard to figure out how the book should end, Stage said. “I knew it had to end with meeting my wife and her becoming pregnant with our daughter,” which didn’t happen until the fourth year of the writing process. The couple now has two young daughters, Stage’s third and fourth children.
With all of these people discussed in Fool For Life, it seems inevitable that the book’s publication would somehow affect Stage’s real-life relationships. And in some cases, it may have.
While Stage noted that the initial meetings with his biological family led to great relationships with siblings he never knew he had, he said that since he finished writing the book, a few of his relatives — including his biological mother Mary Ann and his half-brother Tim — have stopped responding to letters and calls. While he said that he’s not sure of exactly what caused the rift, it “may have something to do with the book.”
One person who remains unbothered by the book’s publication is Virginia, Stage’s adoptive mother. But that’s probably because he hasn’t told her that it’s out.
“I’m [putting off telling her] because I know when she does get ahold of it and starts reading it, that when she gets to the dirty parts she’s going to ground me. For life, probably,” he said.
• William Stage will sign and discuss his book Fool For Life at 7 p.m. April 15 at the Schlafly Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, 225 N. Euclid Ave. For information call 367-4120.
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