...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Misery Lit
- 143 statements
- 26 feature instances
- 17 referencing feature instances
| Misery Lit | type |
FeatureClass | |
| Misery Lit | label |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit | page |
MiseryLit | |
| Misery Lit | comment |
Literary genre about painful, tragic stories; usually memoirs, but not always. Common topics include Abusive Parents (or lack of parents, and dealing with foster homes and terrible orphanages), sexual abuse or sexual assault, drug addiction/alcohol addiction, prostitution, growing up in terrible poverty, or living through historical horrors such as World War II, particularly the Holocaust. As autobiographies or memoirs, these are marketed as non-fiction, but lawsuits may occur if people mentioned in the book disagree with the author's version of events. Such a tale will usually have a bleak white cover, often with a grainy picture of a wretched-looking child on it amidst a scorched or impoverished landscape. Sometimes, this will be the author as a child, but stock images are often used, particularly if there is a need to protect the anonymity of those involved. Expect to see a dramatic-sounding title like Wrecked, Tormented or Please, Daddy, Stop! in cursive writing. Subtitles which talk about the author's childhood being "lost" or "stolen" are also common. It been a profitable genre over the early 2000s, with the rise in interest in "heart on sleeve" confessionals, although in recent years the demand has slowed down. Some bookstores devote an entire section to "Tragic Life Stories" or "Painful Lives." Among publishers, the genre is euphemistically termed "inspirational lit" or "inspi-lit." More cynical people may suspect that readers actually get off on wallowing in the graphically-described horrific abuse described in such books (see Do Not Do This Cool Thing), leading to the term "misery porn". The readership is 80 to 90 percent female, making this a subgenre of women's literature ("Chick Lit", or for film adaptations, a Chick Flick). The misery lit titles are more likely to be sold at drugstores or grocery stores, rather than bookstores. May be related to True Art Is Angsty and gritty Kitchen Sink Drama about impoverished people. Sometimes turns out to be Based on a Great Big Lie, when an author with weak morals senses a big potential payday from inventing a sad backstory for their life. Some well-known misery lit books, such as Go Ask Alice (1971), a lurid purported diary of a teen who faced drug abuse and sexual assault, have been revealed as literary hoaxes (they are fictional). If it gets turned into a film, it's often Oscar Bait. If misery lit is turned into a Very Special Episode for TV, it's likely that there will be some degree of Narm. That is, scenes about the person heroically overcoming their Dark and Troubled Past that are supposed to be serious, but due to either over-sappiness, teary hugging sequences, or excessive melodrama, the drama is lost to the point of surpassing "cheesy" and becoming unintentionally cringy. A gritty Kitchen Sink Drama about a person's impoverished life will avoid this by focusing on the grim realism of their life in a dirty tenement in an Industrial Ghetto, struggling with unemployment and addiction. Not to be confused with the Stephen King novel Misery. Also not to be confused with the band Lit or their song Miserable. |
|
| Misery Lit | fetched |
2024-02-26T04:14:48Z | |
| Misery Lit | parsed |
2024-02-26T04:14:48Z | |
| Misery Lit | processingComment |
Dropped link to AbusiveParents: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Misery Lit | processingComment |
Dropped link to HollywoodSatanism: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Misery Lit | processingComment |
Dropped link to OlderThanRadio: Not an Item - CAT | |
| Misery Lit | processingComment |
Dropped link to OrphanageOfFear: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Misery Lit | processingComment |
Dropped link to ShowWithinAShow: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Misery Lit | processingComment |
Dropped link to VindicatedByHistory: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Misery Lit | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Misery Lit / int_1364b6a7 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_1364b6a7 | comment |
Push by Sapphire. The teenaged protagonist is poor, illiterate, morbidly obese, and subjected to physical and sexual abuse by both parents, becoming a two-time teen mom as a result of being repeatedly raped by her father. | |
| Misery Lit / int_1364b6a7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_1364b6a7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Push | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_1364b6a7 | |
| Misery Lit / int_20191a57 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_20191a57 | comment |
Bleak Expectations: At one point, main villain Mr. Benevolent kidnaps the protagonist's wife, and makes her read this kind of literature as torture. | |
| Misery Lit / int_20191a57 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_20191a57 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bleak Expectations (Radio) | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_20191a57 | |
| Misery Lit / int_27831967 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_27831967 | comment |
A one-off joke on Parks and Recreation had Chris reading a book called Limb-itless, about an armless and legless woman who swam the English Channel. | |
| Misery Lit / int_27831967 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_27831967 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Parks and Recreation | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_27831967 | |
| Misery Lit / int_3c4ddc1e | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_3c4ddc1e | comment |
For Better or for Worse: Michael’s first book, Stone Season is this: Loosely Based On A True Story from his college landlady about a young British woman who marries a Canadian solider right after WW 2 and ends up in an unhappy and abusive relationship in a failing remote farm, slaving away along with her children for years until he drinks himself to death. It’s a smash hit in the strip, but many readers thought it was over the top. | |
| Misery Lit / int_3c4ddc1e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_3c4ddc1e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| For Better or for Worse (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_3c4ddc1e | |
| Misery Lit / int_40a55330 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_40a55330 | comment |
Dave Pelzer is the best known modern-day pioneer of the genre for A Child Called "It" and sequels, which center around his "true-life" story of suffering horrific abuse from his mentally unstable, alcoholic mother while his father stood by and did nothing. A good part of his family has alleged that he was lying through his teeth, one of his brothers agrees, the other one says it was all true and that he became the scapegoat in the family when Dave was finally removed. David's reply to the disagreements is calling the brother who disagrees "a retard" | |
| Misery Lit / int_40a55330 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_40a55330 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| A Child Called "It" | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_40a55330 | |
| Misery Lit / int_479e4faa | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_479e4faa | comment |
Parodied in The Bojeffries Saga, in which Reth Bojeffries gets disowned and eventually murdered by his relatives for writing a highly-exaggerated one of these about his childhood. | |
| Misery Lit / int_479e4faa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_479e4faa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Bojeffries Saga (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_479e4faa | |
| Misery Lit / int_51938ed0 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_51938ed0 | comment |
Parodied in Date Night with the book Phil is forced to read for Claire's book club, about a girl who gets her first period in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. | |
| Misery Lit / int_51938ed0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_51938ed0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Date Night | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_51938ed0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_55157efe | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_55157efe | comment |
Parodied in I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan, a mock autobiography by Alan Partridge, who desperately tries to make his childhood sound like it belongs in one of these books by trying to paint his parents as abusive monsters and his schoolmates as vicious thugs. In fact, it's nakedly obvious that he's only trying to cash in on the Misery Lit craze and dress his actually rather boring childhood up a bit so that it seems more interesting to his publishers; his parents in fact appear to have been rather stereotypically dull Middle-England types (if perhaps not the most pleasant people, judging by how their son turned out) and while he was legitimately bullied at school it doesn't appear to have been to an abnormally cruel degree, being mainly fairly typical stuff like playground name-calling and childish pranks. He gets back into it later when dealing with his television career's swift collapse by trying to dress up what was clearly just a mild eating disorder where he began over-indulging on chocolate and gained a lot of weight as if it were a gritty heroin addiction.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_55157efe | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_55157efe | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_55157efe | |
| Misery Lit / int_597fe68d | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_597fe68d | comment |
Vera Christiane Felscherinow (a.k.a. "Christiane F.")'s autobiography Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo about her teenage years as a drugged prostitute was awfully successful in Europe. | |
| Misery Lit / int_597fe68d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_597fe68d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Christiane F. | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_597fe68d | |
| Misery Lit / int_6373f729 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_6373f729 | comment |
The ultimate example: The Diary of a Young Girl, about a young Jewish girl in WWII who lived in hiding with her family from the monstrous Nazi regime, which was rounding up and killing Jews as part of the Holocaust. Unlike some other examples on this page, it has the distinct advantage of actually being true. What also distinguishes it is that, perhaps rather surprisingly given the circumstances, it's not all unremitting bleakness and misery and in many ways simply reads like the thoughts of a rather ordinary and at times quite optimistic and cheerful teenage girl adapting to horrific circumstances. But that said, the Foregone Conclusion makes it hard to place this book anywhere else. | |
| Misery Lit / int_6373f729 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_6373f729 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Diary of a Young Girl | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_6373f729 | |
| Misery Lit / int_6a6066cf | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_6a6066cf | comment |
Referenced in How NOT to Write a Novel with "A Novel Called It", advising the reader not to use Abusive Parents as subject matter since they're generally as fun to read about as they are to live with. | |
| Misery Lit / int_6a6066cf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_6a6066cf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| How NOT to Write a Novel | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_6a6066cf | |
| Misery Lit / int_74fb542e | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_74fb542e | comment |
That Mitchell and Webb Sound parodies it in one sketch with Thomas Hardy speaking with a fan complimenting him on his latest book, Hardy wondering if it wasn't depressing enough. He's assured that it is easily as depressing as his other books. | |
| Misery Lit / int_74fb542e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_74fb542e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| That Mitchell and Webb Look | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_74fb542e | |
| Misery Lit / int_7899c84f | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_7899c84f | comment |
Also parodied in Adrian Mole — The Prostrate Years, where Adrian's mother tries to write her own (faked) memoir entitled A Girl Called "Shit!" | |
| Misery Lit / int_7899c84f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_7899c84f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Adrian Mole | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_7899c84f | |
| Misery Lit / int_78fc0025 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_78fc0025 | comment |
Twin Peaks - A teen girl named Laura Palmer writes two diaries, a boring diary for people to find and read (which is discovered in the first episode), and another, secret diary (which is found later). From the small snippets that can be gleamed, the secret diary is seemingly similar to the tie-in written by Jennifer Lynch, in that it contains passages suggesting that she had been a victim of continual child abuse, and how it sent her spiraling painfully out of control to her doom. | |
| Misery Lit / int_78fc0025 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_78fc0025 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Twin Peaks | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_78fc0025 | |
| Misery Lit / int_9d189394 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_9d189394 | comment |
Dara O'Briain mentions them in one episode of Mock the Week: "there's the Top 10 at Tesco all called Daddy, No!" | |
| Misery Lit / int_9d189394 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_9d189394 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mock the Week | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_9d189394 | |
| Misery Lit / int_b3aba9af | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_b3aba9af | comment |
On Six Feet Under, Brenda Chenowith was discovered to be a genius, and, as a result, was the subject of a study by Dr. Gareth Feinberg, PhD. He began documenting her odd behavior. Brenda, realizing she was being observed, began studying mental disorders and would fake symptoms to spite the doctors. Feinberg published his account and it eventually became the best-selling book Charlotte Light and Dark, the book that would repeatedly haunt Brenda throughout her life. | |
| Misery Lit / int_b3aba9af | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_b3aba9af | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Six Feet Under | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_b3aba9af | |
| Misery Lit / int_b456bc7a | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_b456bc7a | comment |
David Copperfield is told from the point of view of the protagonist writing about the adversities in his life many years later. | |
| Misery Lit / int_b456bc7a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_b456bc7a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| David Copperfield | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_b456bc7a | |
| Misery Lit / int_b8e5dfd9 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_b8e5dfd9 | comment |
Disco Elysium: Sixteen Days Of Coldest April is a parody of Russian classical literature, a Doorstopper of a book that damages both your Health and Morale just by reading it. Your Pain Threshold skill loves it. | |
| Misery Lit / int_b8e5dfd9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_b8e5dfd9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Disco Elysium (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_b8e5dfd9 | |
| Misery Lit / int_bf4d73fe | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_bf4d73fe | comment |
Angela's Ashes is the 1996 memoir of Frank McCourt (1930—2009), an Irish-American child growing up in poverty in Ireland. It is a collection of various anecdotes and stories of his impoverished childhood and early adulthood in Limerick, Ireland.. | |
| Misery Lit / int_bf4d73fe | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_bf4d73fe | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Angela's Ashes | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_bf4d73fe | |
| Misery Lit / int_cea6bdb0 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_cea6bdb0 | comment |
The Glass Castle: Unusual, in that she never describes her childhood as miserable or even damaging, refuses to vilify her parents, and is really more a memoir of total dysfunction than abuse. A notch above most? | |
| Misery Lit / int_cea6bdb0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_cea6bdb0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Glass Castle | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_cea6bdb0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_cecc425c | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_cecc425c | comment |
Go Ask Alice tried to pass itself off as this, but is now widely agreed to be a work of fiction. | |
| Misery Lit / int_cecc425c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_cecc425c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Go Ask Alice | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_cecc425c | |
| Misery Lit / int_d51177eb | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_d51177eb | comment |
Wild Swans, to a certain extent: it pre-dates the boom of the genre, and is told in a more literary style | |
| Misery Lit / int_d51177eb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_d51177eb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Wild Swans | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_d51177eb | |
| Misery Lit / int_d5e7766e | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_d5e7766e | comment |
Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Honeyman admits that the title character is not based on her or on anyone she knows. Most of the book follows Eleanor as she does her best to get through life day by day while at the same time revealing her many past traumas. Her mother, long abusive to her, harasses her over the phone every single week. When Eleanor was 10, her house burned down, leaving her with facial scarring that she still has 20 years later. She spent the rest of her childhood shuffling from foster home to foster home. She also had an abusive boyfriend. After all that, it's no surprise that anything better than just OK seems too good to be true to her. Eventually, she suffers a massive, vodka-fueled, near-fatal breakdown. Her concerned coworker sends her to a therapist, who helps her turn her life around. During the healing process, we learn that her mother and sister died in the aforementioned fire and that the phone calls have been all in Eleanor's head. | |
| Misery Lit / int_d5e7766e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_d5e7766e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_d5e7766e | |
| Misery Lit / int_e8c699a9 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_e8c699a9 | comment |
Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford, depicting her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother Joan Crawford. Likewise the more famous Film of the Book ("I told you! No wire hangers, ever!") | |
| Misery Lit / int_e8c699a9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_e8c699a9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mommie Dearest | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_e8c699a9 | |
| Misery Lit / int_f489fad2 | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_f489fad2 | comment |
The Creepypasta's I Caught My Grandfather Talking to an Air Vent (the protagonist's mentally-challenged twin sister was kept locked in the attic, and they communicated by talking through the vents) and I Did Something Bad Last Halloween (the protagonist poisons Halloween candy as a way to act out against her abusive family). | |
| Misery Lit / int_f489fad2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_f489fad2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Creepypasta | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_f489fad2 | |
| Misery Lit / int_fa7b176e | type |
Misery Lit | |
| Misery Lit / int_fa7b176e | comment |
They Cage the Animals at Night by Jennings Michael Burch. It's pretty similar to A Child Called "It", albeit not as graphic. It's about a boy and his problems with foster homes and orphanages from the late '40s to the early '50s. | |
| Misery Lit / int_fa7b176e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Misery Lit / int_fa7b176e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| They Cage the Animals at Night | hasFeature |
Misery Lit / int_fa7b176e |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.