Query about representing a memoir

To All Literary Agents:

I’m querying a narrative memoir centered around the deaths of my mother and grandfather, told in two parts interlaced like halves of a deck of cards riffle shuffled together. Combined, they tell a bigger story that begins on March 1st, 2019, when I was in Cuba researching my grandfather’s role in Jimmy Hoffa’s imprisonment and President Kennedy’s assassination, but circles back to the 1970’s, when I was a kid in the foster system. The story revolves around my teenage mom’s abandonment of me around the time when President Nixon pardoned Hoffa, and my return to her custody soon after Hoffa vanished. She was Wendy Anne Rothdram Partin, married to Edward Grady Partin Junior; my grandfather was Edward Grady Partin Senior, the Baton Rouge Teamster leader famous for infiltrating Hoffa’s inner circle in 1962 and being the surprise witness that convicted Hoffa in his 1964 jury-tampering trial. The story weaves my pursuit of history with my memories of growing up with my mom and the Teamsters in the 1970’s and 80’s.

At its core, the story is a coming-of-age tale about growing up in the foster system, with themes centered around memories, family, mentors, and how to honor your mother and father when they aren’t the ones who raise you. Because of my family, it’s also a true-crime story about Hoffa, The Teamsters, and President Kennedy’s assassination, told mostly through historical footnotes that coincide with my memories with the benefit of hindsight. I use footnotes to allow narration to flow, similar to David Foster Wallace using footnotes as part of his fiction style; or, more recently, how Junot Diaz used footnotes to tell multiple overlapping stories in “The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. But, this is a narrative memoir that only happens to use footnotes to explain the historical significance. Contemporary themes include truth in media, conspiracy theories and politics, and government transparency or the lack thereof. America making decisions based on partial or inaccurate information is analogous to me, as a teenager, making decisions based on my limited view of the world.

This book is most closely aligned with Frank “The Irishman” Sheenan’s 2004 memoir, I Heard You Paint Houses; and Jack Goldsmith’s 2019 memoir and true-crime book, “In Hoffa’s Shadow.” Frank was a WWII combat infantryman who became a teamster leader and knew my grandfather well; Jack is a Harvard law professor and former assistant U.S. General Attorney who, under President George Bush Junior, cited my grandfather’s testimony against Hoffa as the foundation of America’s Patriot Act that allows monitoring millions of Americans without just cause. Coincidentally, Jack was the stepson of Chuckie O’Brien, who Jack’s book is about, and Chuckie also knew my grandfather well. This memoir is more narrative than those, because I’m trying to develop my family’s characters by allowing a reader to see them through my eyes as a kid; that’s why I use footnotes to share news reports and court cases that tell a bigger picture and took me decades to assemble and distill into a fact-based account of Hoffa’s disappearance, President Kennedy’s assassination, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This is a work in progress, and will be continuously improved until it goes to press. The current version is at JasonPartin.com/book. In it, my bio and relevance to being in Cuba is quickly divulged as part of the plot, but only when necessary to explain where I learned the different parts of my grandfather’s story over the years.

An ideal agent would be a partner who wants to see the work reach as large of an audience as possible, from book to whatever media is most relevant, and is willing to offer constructive feedback towards that goal. For example, because of the pandemic, Scorcese’s 2019 film The Irishman was based on Frank Sheenan’s 2004 memoir “I Heard You Paint Houses,” and quickly went from movie theaters to streaming on Netflix and set world records for viewership. I’d like this work to be a true story that illuminates the past more clearly than anything so far, and does it in a way that most people can empathize with the characters. I’d also like world leaders to read it, and to know that voters want to use the past to improve the future in a way that should become self-evident by the end of the book. That goal is my priority in writing this and submitting a query letter.

Sincerely,

Jason Ian Partin

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