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The Inventors: A Memoir
In the fall of 1970, at the start of eighth grade, Peter Selgin fell in love with the young teacher who'd arrived from Oxford wearing Frye boots, with long blond hair and a passion for his students that was as intense as it was rebellious. The son of an emotionally remote inventor, Peter was also a twin competing for the attention and affection of his parents. He had a burning need to feel special.
The new teacher supplied that need. Together they spent hours in the teacher's carriage house discussing books, playing chess, drinking tea, and wrestling. They were inseparable until the teacher "resigned" from his job and left. Over the next 10 years, Peter and the teacher corresponded copiously and met occasionally, their last meeting ending in disaster. Only after the teacher died did Peter learn that he'd done all he could to evade his past, identifying himself first as an orphaned Rhodes Scholar and later as a Native American.
As for Peter's father, the genius with the English accent who invented the first dollar-bill changing machine, he was the child of Italian Jews - something else Peter discovered only after his death. Paul Selgin and the teacher were both self-inventors, creatures of their own mythology, inscrutable men whose denials and deceptions betrayed the trust of the boy who looked up to them.
The Inventors is the story of a man's search for his father and a boy's passionate relationship with his teacher and of how these two enigmas shaped that boy's journey into manhood, filling him with a sense of his own unique destiny. It is a story of promises kept and broken as the author uncovers the truth - about both men and about himself. For like them - like all of us - Peter Selgin, too, is his own inventor.
The new teacher supplied that need. Together they spent hours in the teacher's carriage house discussing books, playing chess, drinking tea, and wrestling. They were inseparable until the teacher "resigned" from his job and left. Over the next 10 years, Peter and the teacher corresponded copiously and met occasionally, their last meeting ending in disaster. Only after the teacher died did Peter learn that he'd done all he could to evade his past, identifying himself first as an orphaned Rhodes Scholar and later as a Native American.
As for Peter's father, the genius with the English accent who invented the first dollar-bill changing machine, he was the child of Italian Jews - something else Peter discovered only after his death. Paul Selgin and the teacher were both self-inventors, creatures of their own mythology, inscrutable men whose denials and deceptions betrayed the trust of the boy who looked up to them.
The Inventors is the story of a man's search for his father and a boy's passionate relationship with his teacher and of how these two enigmas shaped that boy's journey into manhood, filling him with a sense of his own unique destiny. It is a story of promises kept and broken as the author uncovers the truth - about both men and about himself. For like them - like all of us - Peter Selgin, too, is his own inventor.
- GenresMemoir
Audible Audio
First published June 1, 2016
4 people are currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Peter Selgin
25 books63 followersPeter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, Life Goes to the Movies, a novel, two books on the craft of fiction, and two children’s books. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including Glimmer Train Stories, Poets & Writers, The Sun, Slate, Colorado Review, Writers and Their Notebooks, Writing Fiction, and Best American Essays 2009. Confessions of a Left-Handed Man: An Artist’s Memoir, was recently published by the University of Iowa Press and was short-listed for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His latest novel, The Water Master, won this years’ Pirate’s Alley / Faulkner Society Prize, and his essay, The Kuhreihen Melody, won the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. Selgin’s visual art has graced the pages of the The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Gourmet, and other publications. Selgin has had several plays published and produced, including Night Blooming Serious, which won the Mill Mountain Theater Competition. His full-length play, A God in the House, based on Dr. Kevorkian and his suicide device, was a National Playwright’s Conference Winner and later optioned for Off-Broadway. He teaches at Antioch University’s MFA writing program and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia College.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 9, 2019
I loved this so much. Where to start?
Recently I was reading a blogpost in which the author was discussing the writing of memoir. He mentioned this one, and that he wrote most of it in second person, addressing his younger self. His agent was dubious about this choice, urging him not to as it would not appeal to as many readers. Selgin rewrote as first person, decided that felt wrong, rewrote again as second.
And I think it's the perfect decision.
All the memoirs I've enjoyed somehow perform a conjuring trick; even if their writer is nothing like you, they somehow convince you they are writing experiences you also had, just in a different key. Selgin's approach of talking about his young self in second person accomplishes this perfectly: 'Then there were things that you didn't talk about.' It's an intimate story, full of intricate and fragile relationships, a young man trying to find his way, hoping to find something special, despairing that he ever will, finding that everything is so much more slippery and complex than it seems. His writing is flawless, a pleasure, guiding you through this journey with grace and clarity.
Recently I was reading a blogpost in which the author was discussing the writing of memoir. He mentioned this one, and that he wrote most of it in second person, addressing his younger self. His agent was dubious about this choice, urging him not to as it would not appeal to as many readers. Selgin rewrote as first person, decided that felt wrong, rewrote again as second.
And I think it's the perfect decision.
All the memoirs I've enjoyed somehow perform a conjuring trick; even if their writer is nothing like you, they somehow convince you they are writing experiences you also had, just in a different key. Selgin's approach of talking about his young self in second person accomplishes this perfectly: 'Then there were things that you didn't talk about.' It's an intimate story, full of intricate and fragile relationships, a young man trying to find his way, hoping to find something special, despairing that he ever will, finding that everything is so much more slippery and complex than it seems. His writing is flawless, a pleasure, guiding you through this journey with grace and clarity.
August 21, 2016
Wow. I've read a lot of memoirs, but this is among the best. Unapologetic, bold, sad, strong, questioning, touching...I truly cried reading the Afterward. Honestly, I planned to skim this book because the author is visting my campus library for an event, but I couldn't put it down. I read a library borrowed copy, but I'll be buying one and asking Selgin to sign it this week -- to have it in my collection, lend it to people, and, perhaps, read again some day when I don't mind feeling a bit kicked in the gut.
August 18, 2017
Disclaimer: I know Peter and bought a copy for myself a year ago, to finally read now.
This is a nicely focused memoir interrogating the seemingly clear personal influences in our early years and the requisite wandering through early adulthood that only makes sense when given time to reflect on the longer arc of life. For whatever embellishments and smoothing of the story Peter took in writing this, it openly presents a message of honesty with oneself.
This is a nicely focused memoir interrogating the seemingly clear personal influences in our early years and the requisite wandering through early adulthood that only makes sense when given time to reflect on the longer arc of life. For whatever embellishments and smoothing of the story Peter took in writing this, it openly presents a message of honesty with oneself.
April 10, 2016
Memoirs are hard to make special. I'll never write one (and I've had a fairly interesting life, IMHO). But one needs to find the right "doorway" to write any book--and this is especially true of memoir. Selgin found his doorway and leads the reader on a guided tour of a fabulous mansion; there are lots of mirrors and reflective surfaces, paintings... bedrooms.
This book is proof of just how good a memoir can be. He sets the bar high. Selgin, as usual, has quite a tale to tell. It's an ambitious book--writing a memoir about "invention" virtually requires one to be "inventive." Every choice in this book in terms of pacing, flashbacks and clever literary devices is spot-on. In chapter after chapter Selgin sticks the landing. Peter Selgin has always been fascinated with duality and I believe this book will be considered his career masterpiece. At least so far.
This book is so well-written and I think anyone will enjoy it. A real page-turner. Jammed with surprises. I couldn't put it down, took it everywhere. I was sad to reach the wonderful conclusion.
This book is proof of just how good a memoir can be. He sets the bar high. Selgin, as usual, has quite a tale to tell. It's an ambitious book--writing a memoir about "invention" virtually requires one to be "inventive." Every choice in this book in terms of pacing, flashbacks and clever literary devices is spot-on. In chapter after chapter Selgin sticks the landing. Peter Selgin has always been fascinated with duality and I believe this book will be considered his career masterpiece. At least so far.
This book is so well-written and I think anyone will enjoy it. A real page-turner. Jammed with surprises. I couldn't put it down, took it everywhere. I was sad to reach the wonderful conclusion.
December 17, 2024
A really unusual approach to memoir writing. Selgin keeps a close focus on the threads he chooses to follow, even as they weave around between each other. We learn about him through the relationships he has with his father and a teacher, as well as the dialogues he has with himself. As hard as each individual is to pin down, a greater understanding of life and its confusions is revealed as we progress.
June 1, 2020
Naive? Sentimental? Yes, but so what. This amazing assembled memoir made me examine my own life; Who can ask for more? Roughly Selgin's age, also a Connecticut native, also with an Italian mother, also with an inventor father, also with a past with a school teacher, also once in love with New York but now disillusioned-- it's me all over again, put down in words better than I ever could.
August 22, 2021
Fantastic memoir. My partner picked this up at random to give to me, so imagine my surprise when about 10 pages in I realized the “teacher” in question was my former college advisor. I admired this man deeply and was a student of his when he died suddenly. This book has painted him in a new light and given me much to ponder and question.
December 30, 2020
It is sad that this author is a professor of creative writing who may influence students who have far more talent that he exhibits in this pathetic work. Let's hope his students are able to rise above their instructor.
March 16, 2016
Library Journal Review, March 15, 2015
Selgin, Peter. The Inventors. Hawthorne Bks. & Literary Arts. Apr. 2016. 352p. ISBN 9780989360470. pap. $18.95. MEMOIR
Selgin’s (Life Goes to the Movies; Drowning Lessons) memoir debut focuses on the two men—the author’s father and his eighth-grade English teacher—who had the most impact on his life. In telling the story of his relationships with these individuals, he uncovers not only what they hid from him and most other people in their lives, but unravels what people keep hidden from themselves. Short interludes are interspersed throughout; some tell fablelike stories that enhance the larger narrative, but just as often Selgin uses them to delve into the matter of how we narrate our lives, how impossible it really is to remember the past, how blending fiction and nonfiction often leads to a more believable version of the truth. As such, readers might wonder about the veracity of Selgin’s story. Are we being told “the truth” or a version of the truth, and is there a difference? VERDICT A remarkable model of the art of the memoir, this book will satisfy all readers. Highly recommende
Selgin, Peter. The Inventors. Hawthorne Bks. & Literary Arts. Apr. 2016. 352p. ISBN 9780989360470. pap. $18.95. MEMOIR
Selgin’s (Life Goes to the Movies; Drowning Lessons) memoir debut focuses on the two men—the author’s father and his eighth-grade English teacher—who had the most impact on his life. In telling the story of his relationships with these individuals, he uncovers not only what they hid from him and most other people in their lives, but unravels what people keep hidden from themselves. Short interludes are interspersed throughout; some tell fablelike stories that enhance the larger narrative, but just as often Selgin uses them to delve into the matter of how we narrate our lives, how impossible it really is to remember the past, how blending fiction and nonfiction often leads to a more believable version of the truth. As such, readers might wonder about the veracity of Selgin’s story. Are we being told “the truth” or a version of the truth, and is there a difference? VERDICT A remarkable model of the art of the memoir, this book will satisfy all readers. Highly recommende
July 4, 2016
Beautifully written exploration of how the self is created - an exploration of the writer's own history and that of two key people his life - his father, present “at [Peter's] conception”, and a highly charismatic and influential teacher Peter had in the 8th grade. The probing, questioning focus of the book is its most appealing aspect for me, and the shifting perspectives (2nd person when looking back at the past, and 1st person in the present) are one of the aspects that keep it interesting. An unusual and appealing aspect of the book are the pictures from Peter Selgin's father’s patent applications that appear at the start of every chapter.
While the book was not completely successful for me - I believe because there's a depth of emotional involvement in the story that is missing in the writing (for me) - I still recommend it as a thoughtful and intriguing exploration of how we become who we are, and how our stories about who we are shape us, and shape the important others in our lives.
While the book was not completely successful for me - I believe because there's a depth of emotional involvement in the story that is missing in the writing (for me) - I still recommend it as a thoughtful and intriguing exploration of how we become who we are, and how our stories about who we are shape us, and shape the important others in our lives.
August 26, 2016
The author writes about two important men in his life, both of whom invented and/or erased their past histories and their "selves": his father, who was actually an inventor, and a high school English teacher, on whom Selgin had an intense crush. Neither relationship has satisfying closure for Selgin but here he hashes out... well, I'm not sure what he's working out here. The story about the teacher is more concrete and interesting, but both tales are told in fractured manners and his ultimate points about these men and what they did for him and meant to him are unclear. Interesting, thought-provoking, but I was left unsatisfyingly at sea at the end. Maybe because Selgin is, too.
January 29, 2017
Ambitious project. Write to your younger self and illuminate reflections from your father by decorating your book with his patent applications. Describe your experiences, your decisions, your thought processes both wise and foolish, without passing judgment on the you of yesterday. Bare your young soul, unclothing those pesky things--feelings--to be naked for the whole world to see.
May 7, 2016
Masterfully structured, genuinely moving account of a man coming to see himself clearly. If you write or study memoir, study this one's architecture. And if all you want it to just want to read a really good book, I recommend this one to you.
February 22, 2017
Intense and marvelously written.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews