Vendetta: A Memoir in Grudges
“Just let it go,” Christine Grimaldi heard her whole life—often from the very people and institutions responsible for harming her, or perpetuating harm against women like her. How many more times had Black, trans, disabled, undocumented, and unhoused people unlike her been told to just let “it” go? Christine learned to live with the various iterations of “it,” but her sense of fairness, of righteousness—qualities discouraged in women—never went away.
Then Christine learned why. Diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, the frequently mocked and misunderstood OCD, at age 38, Christine’s brain is inclined to the compulsion to “O” about “it.” From the childhood bully that haunted her to the perinatal negligence that nearly killed her, Christine cannot let “it” go. This time, Christine embraced what could have haunted her. OCD liberated Christine from the societal expectations to be nice, or at least play nice. And so Christine did as she does: She wrote “it.”
Vendetta: A Memoir in Grudges is a "memoir-plus" exploration into Christine’s enemies, which readers will recognize as their own: health care disparities, cultural expectations, and gender inequalities. “All the Small Men” (forthcoming) is a literary resume of the men and at least one woman who bought into the patriarchy and stymied Christine’s journalism career, job by job. “The Robin Hood of For-Profit Education” explores Christine’s foray into the for-profit education system on behalf of her beloved boomer father, who couldn’t manage the technology required for a promotion and maybe shouldn’t get the job anyway. And since no one can hate on Christine more than Christine, “Christine” captures the tension between self-sabotage and self-acceptance and journey from self-loathing to self-love.
Each chapter of Vendetta: A Memoir in Grudges could be its own viral essay, “The Crane Wife” that begot The Crane Wife. Together, in book form, they are in conversation with each other about what is worth holding onto in this world. Vendetta: A Memoir in Grudges is written in the style of Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel and Maris Kreizman’s I Want to Burn This Place Down. Christine’s arguments draw from the moral clarity of Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger and Soraya Chemaly’s Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger.
“Just let it go,” Christine realized, is just another commandment from her Catholic childhood, designed to remove her agency—and yours. Reclaim “it.” What’s your vendetta? Join the conversation at #whatsyourvendetta on Bluesky and Instagram.