The image of “the steadfast mountain, unmoved by the sound and fury of an individual destiny,” a reference to the celebrated Beat writer Jack Kerouac and his novel Desolation Angels, sets the tone for Aram Saroyan’s before I forget: a memoir (and then some) (Three Rooms Press, 2026). The memoir can be seen as Saroyan’s attempt to transform the “terror and chaos” of a childhood of “violent misery that tore the family apart twice by the time I was eight,” into the “stillness” surrounding the mountain peak in Kerouac’s novel.
Aram recalls the monstrous behavior of his father, William Saroyan, the “international literary sensation” of almost mythic fame, who dominated the literary scene of the 1930s and ‘40s America. More than four decades after his father’s death, and after the son himself has risen to international fame — Aram is the author of many books of prose and poetry, a multiple-awards-winning writer, best known for his minimalist poems — the “flamboyant literary figure” of the father, to borrow the son’s words, frames the memoir.
before i forget opens with the chapter titled “Family Portraits” where Aram depicts a life that started with the brutality and the rejection of “a self-made tyrant and compulsive gambler.” It concludes with an accidental encounter in the streets of New York between the now divorced, “embittered” Saroyan and his ex-wife Carol walking arm-in-arm with his “old buddy” Walter Matthau, the actor she had married after a dual-divorce from his father. “If you walk around New York long enough, sooner or later you meet your family,” says Bill in his “booming voice . . . with a jovial look at the two of them.” This final chapter, “The Sound of Love,” offers Aram the closure and the reassurance he seeks. It recalls for me the line, “What thou lovest well remains,” of the Ezra Pound poem Aram uses as his epigraph.
Along with a fascinating account of Aram’s journey to literary fame, the memoir paints a vivid picture of the 1950s and 1960s, the scene the adolescent grew up in. Aram recounts his psychedelic experiences, both chemical and non-chemical, of growing up in a counterculture that promoted “free love” and believed in the use of drugs to expand human consciousness. Leaders of this counterculture, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, are ever-present. So are Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Gloria Vanderbilt, Oona O’Neill, among others. Whether in Los Angeles, Bolinas, London or New York, Aram moves in the world surrounded with the celebrated poets, artists and movie stars of the day. The memoir is full of casual mentions, such as ”our neighbor, the poet Bill Berkson . . .” It might be worth noting here that, at times, being introduced to a few too many names and to stories of divorces and break-ups that seem disjointed, can be confusing. Ultimately, however, these stories come together to create a faithful portrait of the times.
With not much enthusiasm for academia, Aram fails his first year at Trinity, “the venerable all-boys private school” in Manhattan, from which he nonetheless graduates in 1962. An early encounter with the iconic photographer Richard Avedon, however, leads to a beautiful two-page layout in the January 1958 issue of Seventeen magazine, under the heading “Lens on Europe,” of eight photographs of kids he had taken while on a cruise ship to Europe. The layout wins Aram an Art Directors Award. The fifteen-year old is greeted as “a prodigy.”
Most engaging are Aram’s candid and incisive comments, sprinkled throughout, on art and the culture that surrounds him. His observation on Significant Form, “that had to do with finding certain abstract paintings satisfying . . . without understanding why,” resonates with many viewers. His assessment, on the other hand, of the proliferating MFA programs, which “in effect promote an idea about art that is fundamentally false,” shakes the reader into a new consciousness. “Having so large a number of ‘certified’ artists and writers tends to create a watered-down version of art itself,” notes the writer-turned-faculty-member. Aram taught at USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program for 15 years.
