I'm in the middle of revising lesson plans for memoir class. I continue to find new titles about teaching how to write memoir. That "one-click" button on Amazon is so tempting. Today I received two books and have been perusing them this evening. One,"Inventing the Truth" by William Zinsser, Houghton Mifflin, 1998, is his first book on memoir writing to which he refers quite often, The second, is a compilation of well known memoirists and their writings. I was not surprised to see Frank McCourt and Russell Baker included among them. I have cited them often in talking about writing the truth in memoir. The author, Judith Barrington, ("Writing the Memoir" The Eighth Mountain Press, ISBN0-933377-50-9), 2002), has a little different slant in writing what she determines as the truth. Sometimes it is difficult to know the truth when research has conflicting dates and other data that does not line up with the story. She cites another writer, Mary Clearman Blew, : "For my part, I struggled for a long time with conflicting claims of the exact truth of the story and its emotional truth as I perceived it."
Blew believes that both factual and emotional truth are important but sometimes the two are not the same.Too much research, for her,may prove the story you have carried around in your head for years, is confusing and could not be true due to conflicting data. She goes on to say that until recently she did not do research--she went with the memoir she had carried around in her memory.
She gives those memoirists who are like her and detest research some advise; do your research in matters that are public record. Have historical events in the right time period, names and places correct. A writer will save themselves embarrassment when they are meticulous about facts. She goes on to say that public records side, try not to worry about someone not remembering the story just as you do.(I've written about this in an earlier post.) "Memory is such a personal thing. and it is always revising itself."
In the past writers of memoir shied way from writing about harsh and shameful realities. ("Inventing the Truth" by William Zinsser, Houghton Mifflin, 1998). " Today no remembered episode is too sordid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out for the wonderment of the masses in books and magazines and on talk shows"(Inventing the Truth).
There are many good memoir writers today. Zinsser often cites Frank McCourt.as one who used" grace and humor to beat back the past." . "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood; the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood and one yet worse is the miserable, Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." ("Angela's Ashes " by Frank McCourt, Simon and Schuster, 1996, ISBN-9-684-87435-0).
Katherine Bomer in her "Writing a Life," believe that the memoir writer owes the reader honesty..this does not mean the writer isn't allowed too embellish the facts to give he story interest. The basic truth is there but just prefaced with "it could have been...or "I can;'t quite recall it that way."
. I advise my students to be honest but temper your writing with kindness. Memoir is not the place to hash over old disputes.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Comments are welcomed.
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