After a While You Just Get Used to It: A Tale of Family Clutter

by Gwendolyn Knapp

A vibrant new voice ups the self-deprecating memoir ante with tragicomic tales of her dysfunctional life in swampland Florida and America’s Big Easy A dive bar palm reader who calls herself the Disco Queen Taiwan; a slumlord with a penis-of-the-day LISTSERV; and Betty, the middle-aged Tales of the Cocktail volunteer who soils her pants on a party bus and is dealt with in the worst possible way. These are just a few of the unforgettable characters who populate Gwendolyn Knapp’s hilarious and heartbreaking—yet ultimately uplifting—memoir debut, After a While You Just Get Used to It. Growing up in a dying breed of eccentric Florida crackers, Knapp thought she had it rough—what with her pack rat mother, Margie; her aunt Susie, who has fewer teeth than prison stays; and Margie’s bipolar boyfriend, John. But not long after Knapp moves to New Orleans, Margie packs up her House of Hoarders and follows along. As if Knapp weren’t struggling enough to keep herself afloat, working odd jobs and trying to find love while suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, the thirty-year-old realizes that she’s never going to escape her family’s unendingly dysfunctional drama. Knapp honed her writing chops and distinctive Southern Gothic–humor style writing short pieces and participating in the renowned reading series Literary Death Match. Now, like bestselling authors Jenny Lawson, Laurie Notaro, and Julie Klausner before her, Knapp bares her sad and twisted life for readers everywhere to enjoy.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Mental Illness, Biography, Humor, Biography Memoir, Mental Health

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 2015

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes poignant, other times appalling memoir by Gwendolyn (Wendy) Knapp that describes her dysfunctional family, drama filled relationships, and quest to find a job as a struggling writer in New Orleans. The poverty level and drug addicted aunt described in After a While You Just Get Used to It really reminded me of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis except that instead of in Appalachia, Gwendolyn describes a childhood in Florida. I suppose that some struggles are universal.

Although I enjoyed the stories, I wanted to read more about how the family dealt with Gwendolyn's mother's hoarding. Anybody else binge watch episodes of A&E's Hoarders? It's strangely compelling. One lady collected every single flower bouquet message card that she had ever received- a leaning tower of Pisa in miniature, just perpetually collecting dust on one of her many side tables. Anyway, the hoarding angle isn't what this book is really about. The focus is mainly on Gwendolyn's coming of age and early adulthood.

Gwendolyn is slightly older than me, but I enjoyed hearing about specific details from her childhood because I remembered some of those things in mine, like: "I applied my Dr Pepper lip gloss and pulled on my deflated Nike Airs, watching Mom give John a hug before saying her world-famous line, "Well, excuse our junk." pg 6. Not to brag, but I think I had a Dr Pepper lip gloss and a Mint Chocolate Chip chapstick. Those were the days...

I knew that hoarders were emotionally attached to their belongings, but what I didn't realize is that they're also connected to their relatives through their stuff, though it makes sense when you think about it. This is what happened when Gwendolyn's grandpa died: "When an old relative dies, pack rats usually take in all they can from the person's home as if they're adopting abandoned children. It's their duty. Since Grandma kept all his things, her kids had to find new ways to fill their void. Pack rats build up the world around them, separating themselves with a cloak of comfort from the outside world..." pg 16

Gwendolyn's large, extended family has a passive aggressive, sometimes overtly aggressive love/hate thing going for it. She describes her holidays as: "It was cacophonous, ear piercing, and annoying. Don't worry, you might warn a newcomer, some bewildered boyfriend or classmate you'd invited and would never hear from again, after a while you just get used to it. Once the first jug of wine was finished, the racist diatribes and Burl Ives impersonations reared their ugly heads like gophers in need of malleting. ... It wasn't a holiday until my mother, and everybody else for that matter, had left Grandma's feeling victimized by their loved ones." pgs 54-55. Reading scads of memoirs has made me truly appreciate my own family and our very low levels of dysfunction, especially considering how large we are.

Here was the moment when I thought that we were going to deal with the hoarder thing for good, but Gwendolyn records this realization and time just marches on: "Imagine your mother burying herself alive. Imagine knowing there's nothing you can do to help her. Imagine this every day of your life." pg 85

Recommended for readers who grew up during the late 70's/early 80's or for people who like to read about dysfunctional families. Some further suggestions: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (similar themes like poverty and drug addiction), Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" (struggling writer comes of age, details failed relationships), The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories (coming of age theme, but far more serious treatment than this book).

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received this for free through a Goodreads' First Reads giveaway.

Hilarious!

Love the accounts of the author's extremely dysfunctional family, as well as her own struggles being single/in relationships. The author, Gwendolyn Knapp, comes across as likable and is able to poke fun at herself and her upbringing, without being annoying. (There is a certain type of memoir writer that recalls his or her dysfunctional upbringing in such a way that makes me want to punch them through the pages and scream at them to get over it. Everyone comes from a weird family of some type! I'm really not violent. I'm just trying to show you how much those types of memoirs annoy me).

Her writing style is clear and reads smoothly throughout. There weren't any sections that seemed to drag or that were irrelevant or choppy. There are parts of her memoir that are depressing, for example one family member's constant battle with substance abuse, but there were many more that were funny and uplifting, so I came away with positive feelings after finishing this.

I look forward to seeing what other works she publishes in the future, and will have to look at her previous short stories etc. that have been published in various literary magazines in the past.

[Jill Furedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I thought. Not as funny as I hoped. A lot of it was kind of sad, actually. I was hoping by the end, we'd see the author becoming a writer or finding some form of of herself other than as he narrator of her family's mishaps while not much happens to her. She was in bands, but we didn't see it, she was in relationships but we only see the destruction parts, she sells cheese and teaches but she only mentions those in passing. I never got to know her. The book blurb mentioned all these quirky characters, but they ones they mentioned weren't in the book more than a page or two. What we did get was drug addicted family members careening to an early grave, poor life decisions, complete denial of hoarding issues...none of which amused me but none of which garnered sympathy in how they were portrayed. I wanted to at least like the hoarders. Or the sister. Or one of the boyfriends. But I didn't. Don't get me wrong, some of it was fascinating. But I went into based on reviews of its hilarity and I didn't connect to it like that. Or much at all.

[Reggia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay... I laughed a few times. I was drawn in with the clutter issue (hoping to see it overcome) and the eclectic family members (hoping for some redemption). But the liberties taken in describing that family does not seem at all loving, I guess "after awhile, [they] just get used to it".

As an aside, the mother and her boyfriend (or did they eventually marry?) seemed very intelligent. I'm curious: what holds people like this back? and keeps them from reaching their potential?

[dianne b. · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the currently tres chic unimaginable-childhood-in-white-trash- redneck-southern-cracker genre Ms. Knapp writes frankly about her hoarder mother and stepfather, her irritable bowel syndrome (I, personally don’t find poop stories particularly funny, but hey - not far from the tree and all that) her dating disasters, and lots of family vignettes. Playing substantial roles in all of these precious moments are serious substance abuse, epidemic edentulousness, gratuitous violence and cruelty. She writes what she knows and the characters are believable, sometimes infuriating (mother) sometimes poignant (Sherry).

Our safety-net absent society also plays a role. Ever present was the risk (and reality) of homelessness if a paycheck was missed, unemployment struck, or a health catastrophe without insurance, lack of detox/ addiction programs - all defining the complete lack of real options, pathways for escape, for development of a real self, for ever getting OUT of this Sisyphusian cycle.

Ms. Knapp herself constantly lives with the massive oppression of her huge student loan debt. It colors every decision she makes and absolutely limits her options; precludes any real chance of risk taking or adventure.

She helps us understand (perhaps) a contributing factor in hoarding; trapped in such apparently dead end lives, maybe looking backwards is rosier:

pg 194 - “John won’t sell it” (his old blue truck) “because, quite simply, it’s his last vestige of their previous life. He’s even told me ‘It reminds me of home,’ so he goes out there and waxes the truck every weekend, and recalls what life was once like with a driveway, a hose...My mother does the same thing inside with her ballet slippers and lace up platform shoes, rubbing the old satin of them, feeling the days of her youth slip between her fingers. Entire days and lifetimes can be consumed by this madness if you let it.”

I did learn some useful new vocabulary:
wendigo (also spelled windigo)
Although she did not use this word to describe the obvious relationship between the lives of her family members and the institutional inequity that traps them. I did.
From Wiki:
In some Indigenous communities, environmental destruction and insatiable greed are also seen as a manifestation of Windigo Psychosis…….This belief continues in the living cultures, with humans and corporations who wreak environmental destruction, who destroy communities with their greed and racism, now seen as suffering from the Windigo Sickness….The Windigo is sick because it’s cut off from its roots. It’s a ghost with a heart of ice. It eats everything in sight. Its hunger knows no bounds. When there is nothing left to eat, it starves to death. When it sees something, it wants to own it. No one else can have anything. This illness feeds on a spiritual void. Canada and US are presently in an advanced stage of the “Windigo Psychosis”. The Mohawks call it the “Owistah” disease.

Geez, this sounds awfully depressing - and its overall framework is - but Ms. Knapp is very funny - with many laugh out loud moments, and some really intelligent banter - especially between Gwen and her sister Molly. You’ll probably laugh while reading this far more than you will furrow your eyebrows in consternation.

I'd love to get others' spin on this book - thanks!

[Sarah Hay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up when I found it shelved in the wrong section and was intrigued by the squirrel on the cover. The author mentioned something about collecting squirrels at one point, but that was all, I figured there would be more to warrant one on the cover.
This is an intriguing look at the authors life but it doesn't really go any where. She chronicles her life with her mom, a hoarder, a drug addicted aunt, her sister, and a cast of extended family from childhood to midlife. Not a lot happens, some of the stories are interesting and a few funny. Mostly this is a quasi ode to family, you don't always want to deal with or claim them, but they are there.

[Kim H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you secretly watch reality television shows about hoarders or people with bizarre eating habits so that you can feel better about your own living space or eating habits? Have you ever attended a support group and thought to yourself, "Well, I may have this problem, but at least I'm not as bad as THAT person!"? If so, Gwendolyn Knapp's memoir, After a While You Just Get Used To It is the book for you!

Less Cousin Eddy (from the Vacation series of films) and more the feeling of TMI (too much information), I didn't find Knapp's memoir as "hilarious" and "side-splitting" as many other readers seem to have found it. It left me feeling a bit squeamish at times for being witness to a little too much "family clutter".

Knapp's writing style is crisp; her vocabulary is earthy and raw. It will punch you in the gut in a few places. But it does grab you and take you along for the ride. I did find myself smiling in a few places even though, in the end, much of the intended humor fell flat for me.

Thanks to Shelf Awareness for the free copy I received in exchange for this review.

From the Publisher . . .

A dive bar palm reader who calls herself the Disco Queen Taiwan; a slumlord with a penis-of-the-day LISTSERV; and Betty, the middle-aged Tales of the Cocktail volunteer who soils her pants on a party bus and is dealt with in the worst possible way. These are just a few of the unforgettable characters who populate Gwendolyn Knapp’s hilarious and heartbreaking—yet ultimately uplifting—memoir debut, After a While You Just Get Used to It.

Growing up in a dying breed of eccentric Florida crackers, Knapp thought she had it rough—what with her pack rat mother, Margie; her aunt Susie, who has fewer teeth than prison stays; and Margie’s bipolar boyfriend, John. But not long after Knapp moves to New Orleans, Margie packs up her House of Hoarders and follows along. As if Knapp weren’t struggling enough to keep herself afloat, working odd jobs and trying to find love while suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, the thirty-year-old realizes that she’s never going to escape her family’s unendingly dysfunctional drama.

Knapp honed her writing chops and distinctive Southern Gothic–humor style writing short pieces and participating in the renowned reading series Literary Death Match. Now, like bestselling authors Jenny Lawson, Laurie Notaro, and Julie Klausner before her, Knapp bares her sad and twisted life for readers everywhere to enjoy.

About the Author . . .

Gwendolyn Knapp holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina. Her fiction has appeared in Crazyhorse and Quarterly West, and her nonfiction has appeared in The Southeast Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol. 2, and Narrative.ly. She also had a notable essay mention in The Best American Essays 2013. Knapp lives in New Orleans, where her mother also relocated in 2010, along with tons of her junk.

[LucyV · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more than a tale of family clutter; so honest, it is often embarrassing. But how better to deal with awkward situations than with humor? A story of a "messed-up" family yet somehow love comes through.

Favorite quote from book on Page 67:
Like Mom, her sister enjoyed the meditative quality of resentment as it pressure-cooked you from the inside out.

Those who read Let's Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson and Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance might like to read this memoir.

[Tom M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knapp had what you might call something of a southern white trash upbringing. Raised by a hoarder of a mother in a tiny Florida town with lots of relatives all on the same block, where feuds and huge family parties were often one in the same, it was quite the 80s childhood. Her sister, older by several years, goes Goth, gets a job at the local burger joint to save money and get outta town.

Knapp, like all of the teenagers in that town, longs to do the same. Somehow, inexplicably, most seem to return -- despite earning college degrees -- as if affected by the soul-sucking gravitational pull of a black hole. It makes for some depressing reading.

And that's my biggest problem with After a While... Knapp is a fine writer. Her observations of her family and herself are insightful and sympathetic. Her depression (and that of her mother) is evident, as is the trapped feeling of helplessness. There are some brilliant Truth Is Funnier Than Fiction moments in her writing, but those are few and far between. After a While..., to me, lacked hope. The closest she came was the acknowledgement that she loves her mother and sister, despite (or because of?) all of the codependency going on.

[Jameson Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humor combines with unvarnished personal and familial stories--delivered with non-mawkish affection--to produce these original, memoir-esque tales. Disparate topics such as IBS, cyber-cheating, and hoarding are delivered via Knapp's unique voice. It's not easy to speak about members of your family so deeply, honestly, and critically without losing any (or all) of a reader's sympathy There's underlying heart in not explaining away why people are they way they are. It's very genuine and refreshing. I'd want someone like Knapp writing my biography. Which I realize is an incredibly vain thing to say. How about this: She's someone I'd want to have a conversational, lengthy interview with for a blog post. One where she asks all the questions.

BTW, I came across Knapp's work via Eater, where she contributed a perfect story of what it's like to volunteer at Tales of the Cocktail. It's also included in this book.

[wade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that didn't need to be written. I really didn't care about the author's irritable bowel syndrome and a number of other maladies and gross habits that her friends and family exhibit in these pages. It is like a celebration of the redneck Honey Boo Boo lifestyle put to memoir form. Sometimes when I read a memoir there is a voyeuristic attraction but so here. I just wanted to leave them to their drinking, clutter and dysfunctional behavior and go back to my family's unremarkable life.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked up the book and laughed my way through to end in one sitting! A weird and wonderful memoir growing up with a hoarder and a group of very unusual family members. Along the way the author learns to appreciate her life and its unusual-ness! Definitely should be on your to read list for the summer.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, but brutally honest. Loved it. "Most parents would probably want their children to get a job in high school and experience a taste of the real world, but not Mom. A lifelong graduate student, she'd always been adamantly against working."

[Becky Aubrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. She describes her family and friends, and her life in a very entertaining way. I hope she keeps updating her life as she lives it.

[Suzanne LaPierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I both started and finished during the "stay at home" edict. It's a light read, a humorous memoir about a Florida family that is nutty in a way most families are, more or less. Wendy and Molly grow up with their Mom and her boyfriend John, who met in architecture school, in a cluttered house with a lovably kooky extended family nearby. They have their troubles but nothing to deepen your depression during the pandemic. Knapp uses clever, colorful language and avoids cliches. The chapter about her IBS is reflective of the humor-meets-pathos yarn that works in this book. Thanks, Little Free Library!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. I didn't really like this all that much. A family tale of cluttter -- I was expecting more of a story about hoarders -- and while that is part of this -- it's also about all the other levels and layers of dysfunction of her family. Self deprecating and humorous, but also sad. Mom is a mess, sister is pissed, aunts are junkies. There is stuff and clutter, but there is also scabies and staph infections, alcoholism and drug addition. A bit hard to read at times actually (scenarios, not the writing) and I was glad to be done with it. It was a less than a day read.

[Vic S-F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shoutout to the Little Free Library in the parking lot of the North Raleigh community center for thrusting this book upon me. I read it at the same time that I was listening to Hannah Hart's Buffering and they were weirdly complementary-- Gross, funny, painfully relatable, but often disjointed, and I think this one came off worse in comparison. Still, some great, profoundly specific insights about dating shitty dudes, loving your shitty family, no AC in the south, the gifts given by your older sister's goth phase, etc.

[Susan's Sweat Smells Like Literature · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been watching "Florida Girls" this summer on PopTV. Since the season ended, I've been missing the show. Gwendolyn Knapp's memoir of her hilarious and horrifying family fills the gap left by Jayla, Kaitlin, Shelby and Erica nicely. Each chapter could be an episode.

Cringey and entertaining: Gwendolyn's horrible boyfriends. At first I wondered if they were really that bad, but of course it's more than possible.

My favorite chapter: Knapp's struggles with IBS. I laughed, I cried & I had to make a run for the bathroom.

[Erin Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed writer Gwendoline Knapps memoir. It is smart, funny, sad and a little bit ugly but also very, very honest. The poor girl does not have the best luck, cheating boyfriends, drug addict relatives, irritable bowel syndrome, marginal jobs, etc. She just grits her teeth and bears it, she doesn't complain about the rough hand she's been dealt, she owns it. She's got gumption and I like that. I would love to read a sequel to this novel in another five or ten years. I want to see where her life takes her, and most of all I want her to have a happy ending. Recommended!

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written and funny. Love the honesty and overall acceptance of her family. Glad to read an alternative perspective that didn't force her relatives into changing. But this doesn't mean the author didn't struggle with negative feelings. That she presented them openly and with reflection and self-insight is refreshing.

[Lisa Rutledge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but I found it very hard to get into. There story jumped around a lot and some places had way too much detail, while other places had no detail and I was left wondering who the author was talking about or why she was talking about them. I also expected more about hoarding and its effects, but I found it lacking in that regard.

[Pug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story about her bumpkin family and their filthy house, full of garbage! A delightful "hoarded" description. And funny, dry/sarcastic asides. But once the author moved to New Orleans, the story didn't really go anywhere!?

[Michelle Rosenau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this book had me laughing, a lot made me cringe and the clutter part hits too close to home. Married to a pack rat that never wants to get rid of anything contributes to our clutter although we're not as bad as this...yet.

[T. Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book!

I have lived many of the things this author writes about. I have also lived in all the places the author wrote about. If I did not know better I would swear she is one of my relatives! 🤓 ... and I have very much enjoyed reading this book!

[Carole Knoles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gwendolyn Knapp’s very funny book was the perfect medicine for me during a a miserable bout of a holiday case of flu.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relatable.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this book.

[Nancy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay. I think I expected a clear-cut resolution to everyone's problems, but that didn't happen so I was a little disappointed. I did enjoy the funny and ironic moments, though.

[Tarra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notable chapter: The Great Give and Take

[J.S. Colley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

After A While You Just Get Used To It is a memoir. The narrative focuses on the author’s years growing up in Florida and, later, on her great escape to The Big Easy. But she doesn’t escape for long. Her pack rat mom, with all her baggage—physical and mental—soon follows.

What can I say about this book? It’s funny. It’s raw. It’s heartbreaking. It’s real. It’s honest. It’s GROSS! At times it makes you squirm.

And I can relate.

Like Gwendolyn (Wendy) Knapp, I spent a good part of my youth in Florida. In north central Florida, to be precise. And while my family’s dysfunction is not exactly like Knapp’s (all families have their own unique brand), I recognized that which is uniquelysouthern.

Unlike Knapp, I cannot call myself a true Florida Cracker. My family was not indigenous to Florida. We migrated, moving there for my mother’s health (Ha. The doctors were wrong—all that mold!). But I lived there long enough to recognize eccentricities unique to that steamy peninsula, if not to all the deep south. If the Knapp family were to have a prayer, they should never have moved to The Big Easy, another locale where the weather imitates the conditions of a Petri dish; but it does make for an interesting read.

Maybe that’s the element that makes southern writers so unique. Their writing ripens in the hot, sultry atmosphere. The kind of atmosphere that enables beautiful things grow, but also makes them rot.

And there is a lot of “rot” in this story. From rotten teeth (her Aunt Susie had less teeth than prison stays), to mangy dogs, roaches, cat-peed couches, soiled khakis and a staph infection that comes to a big, ugly head. I admit that it was hard, at times, to ingest all the sad squalor, to not be turned off by it, but Knapp’s humor and her terrific writing skills made it not only palatable but rewarding. Amid all the omg! stuff is a lot of laughs and humanity. Without giving anything away, there is a scene where Wendy lies down among the flowers, if only for a few minutes, as if to be cleansed of all the tawdriness. Good for her.

Knapp has a talent for capturing the essence of a character, or a scene, though keen observation. She captures this absurd situation when she goes with her boyfriend to pay the rent at his gay, drug-dealing slumlord’s house:

People wanting to buy dime bags or pay rent or get their bangs trimmed mingled around the enormous black marble island in the kitchen.

There are many quotable passages, but I’ll leave them for readers to discover on their own.

The story did jump around a bit in the first half. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, events don’t have to be told in a linear fashion, but a few times I had to stop and think. And there were a lot of similes. Three or four on one page. Don’t get me wrong, I like similes and metaphors. They were well done (“their instrument cases hovering like censor bars”) and, especially in the first half, gave the reader a sense of the Florida Cracker personality, but they can become distracting if overdone. Especially if you are clueless to what something is being compared to, which I was on a few occasions. In the second half, though, the narrative becomes smoother and the similes rarer.

This is a great read—funny, sad, tragic, and hopeful—everything a good memoir should be. I’m looking forward to reading more from this talented author.