‘Darkly absurd’ memoir tackles dysfunctional childhood

What happens when a hapless dreamer marries an inveterate hoarder? Their daughter, Amanda Uhle, the successful publisher and executive director of McSweeney’s, takes readers on the wild ride of a lifetime in her debut book, “Destroy This House,” as she describes growing up with her dysfunctional family in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

McSweeney’s is an American publishing company founded by superstar Dave Eggers, author of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” the 2010 Michigan State University and East Lansing’s annual One Book, One Community selection.

Uhle is no stranger to Michigan. For 11 years, she served as executive director of 826michigan, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for school-aged students in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Ypsilanti.

I was able to catch up with Uhle amid her cross-country promotional tour. She was coming off a successful reading at San Francisco’s City Lights, the venerable bookstore founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

“It was standing-room only,” she said. One wonders how many of the attendees had personal experience with a hoarder. Those who have hoarders or schemers in their family will likely find themselves immersed in Uhle’s book, which tells the story of living with both with no varnish.

As you read Uhle’s family tell-all, you can’t help wondering how something like this happens. Uhle candidly admits, “I don’t know.”

Her father, Stephen, was an ill-fated inventor, coming up with ideas like a toilet seat to prevent HIV and a newfangled soap dispenser, which was mildly successful. His life was filled with get-rich-quick schemes, and despite many failures, he always moved on to the next big idea. His final scheme was serving as a pastor of a church he founded.

Uhle’s mother, Sandra, despite being a talented and classically trained clothing designer, worked mostly out of her home, selling cleaning products.

But her real career, as Uhle relates, was shopping and accumulating. Sandra’s first foray into hoarding involved buying clothes — lots of them. Though she was a gifted seamstress, her sewing projects were seldom completed, and piles of unopened packages containing fabric would pile up.

Then she began hoarding food products.

“It wasn’t a dozen eggs, it was 48 eggs,” Uhle said. “She would buy dozens of extra things. It was always more stuff.”

In her book, Uhle often describes her parents as creative and humorous, with the ability to manufacture tall tales. As she grew older, she realized her family was always on the move, one step ahead of bill collectors. It was daunting growing up in such a household, especially as she became a teenager.

“I didn’t have friends over. I had such shame about the hoarding and was embarrassed about it,” she said.

“As time went on, it got worse and worse, and I had to start dealing with it,” she continued. She started cleaning, but that didn’t work — it often doesn’t, instead fueling a hoarder’s need to fill space with new items.

Today, Uhle said, she’s careful about accumulating.

“At readings, people ask for advice. I don’t know what to tell them. It’s so complex,” she said. “I have no idea what causes it. I wish I understood my mother better. She was so inscrutable when she was alive.”

Uhle understands that she has written a “darkly absurd” memoir.

“I often saw my parents as funny characters, and our life was a load of fun,” she said.

But as she confronted writing the last parts of the book, she realized her parents “were awful.”

“Toward the end, I was on a precipice. It was the worst time. The ending is what the book is about,” she said.

It takes a lot of courage to write about a dysfunctional family, but Uhle has managed to pull it off with aplomb. She tells her story with honesty and forthrightness, but it might make you want to get rid of some stuff.